


Still Shattered

by everythingneedsrevision



Series: Broken Pieces [2]
Category: Hardy Boys - Franklin W. Dixon, Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene, Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super Mysteries - Franklin W. Dixon & Carolyn Keene
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of a Case, F/M, Flashbacks, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6432466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingneedsrevision/pseuds/everythingneedsrevision
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even after finding freedom and ending one nightmare, the hold Zollner had over the Hardy family and their friends lingers. Frank continues to fight a battle against his own mind. His family and friends worry over him and the others affected by Zollner's brainwashing and torture as more signs of Zollner's interference in their lives show up by the day.</p><p>Sequel to All the Broken Pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Unexpected Things

**Author's Note:**

> I shouldn't do this because I have so many unfinished projects and have been having trouble keeping them updated, but I did a couple short fics for Love in Subtle Clues using this universe and kept thinking I wanted to do more with the idea. That, and the trial in In Darknes and Hope is hard to write and I'm effectively stymied on my crossover and I actually had original characters nagging at me to do stuff with them.
> 
> In the end, I wrote this. It includes something I meant to do in All the Broken Pieces, but Joe ended up getting hurt in a different way. And part of this is the short piece from Love in Subtle Clues extended into a longer scene.

* * *

_Well, that was a disaster,_ Nancy thought to herself, not sure she could think of it any other way. She didn't know what to do now, not after that. All of her plans and work were out the window, and she had to find some way of recovering and stabilizing this mess she'd created. She knew it was, for the most part, of her own making, but that didn't make it hurt any less. It might even hurt more.

She shook her head, trying not to dwell too much on that. She wasn't sure how she would fix it—most of it couldn't be fixed—but agonizing over it while driving was far from the best thing she could do. She didn't even know where she was. She'd gotten in the car and started driving, and she could be anywhere by now, more the fool her.

She caught sight of a road sign and almost laughed at herself. Thank goodness for auto pilot. She might not know what else to do, but at least that part of her brain knew what it was doing. She had headed in what just might be the right direction—or maybe just the only direction.

She drove the rest of the way without incident, stopping the car in front of a familiar house. She didn't see any other vehicles around, so she might as well be lost. She shook her head, forcing herself out of the car and forward, up the path and to the door. She rang the bell and waited, trying not to fidget as she did.

The door opened, and Nancy blinked, surprised to see Frank standing there. He gave her a slight frown as he stepped back, letting her in. She hadn't realized they'd cleared him to move around without crutches, and she also thought he still needed lots of prodding to leave his room, so him answering the door was almost a shock. It was good he was here; it really was, but she was afraid he shouldn't be. Maybe he was pushing too hard. Or he was putting a good face on it.

He did seem to be in a strangely good mood for Frank post Zollner, that was for sure.

“I had this whole speech prepared for the salesperson at my door—one that would scare them off and possibly scar them for life—but you threw me off and now I can't remember a word of it,” Frank told her, and she giggled, sounding a bit off to her own ears. He shut the door behind her, and she ran her hands over her arms despite the fact that the day wasn't at all chilly. “The things I get up to when I'm bored, I swear...”

“That sounds more like Joe.” Nancy managed to say. “He's the one that gets in trouble when he's bored. You internalize and brood like crazy.”

Frank shrugged. “I kind of took over Mom's role with the accounting, and it is... mind-numblingly boring. Keeps me from brooding, they claim, but I think that's just an excuse to keep me busy so I can't think about... things.”

She smiled, though she didn't know that busy work was what Frank needed, not after all he'd been through. “Accounting as therapy?”

“Numbers don't lie,” Frank told her as he led her into the other room. She almost laughed at that, but it wasn't all that funny. She didn't know that he trusted any of this was real, not yet. It might take a long, long time for that.

“So, not that I'm not glad to see you and all, but what brings you by?” Frank asked as he gestured for Nancy to sit down on the couch. She smiled at him as she took her seat, knowing that would be the first thing he asked of her. She knew it was awkward, and he must be thinking she was here just to check up on him again, since he was still recovering from that last case, but it wasn't like that.

Okay, it wasn't _just_ like that. Of course she wanted to see him and make sure he was all right. She also had a mess of things on her mind and needed a place to sort them out. The Hardys always welcomed her, and she needed that right now.

“I was in the neighborhood.”

“Nice try,” he said, a slight smile on his face. “I can tell this is going to take a bit. You want something to drink?”

“Yes,” Nancy answered, now aware of how dry her throat was. She started to get up again, but he waived her off.

“Let me. You stay where you are. I'll get it,” he told her, and she thought about arguing with him, but he shook his head. “Not only am I fine, but you've been traveling and need a break. Just let me do it. I'll throw in a please if I have to, but if you make me do that—”

“No, you don't have to beg,” she assured him, not sure what kind of threat he might have made if she'd insisted on it. “Thank you.”

He smiled back at her before going to the kitchen.

* * *

Frank stopped against the counter, taking a deep breath and letting it out. That had been more taxing than anticipated. He would blame his physical limits, but they weren't even what held him back these days. He could walk without his crutches—it still hurt on occasion, but he was more or less healed now—and he knew any other pains were just phantom ones, things his mind twisted into something they weren't.

His hip was one of the worst, the scar that Zollner and Vallin had made tending to throb at all hours, random throughout the day, making him feel like it was infected when it wasn't.

He closed his eyes, shoved a bunch of thoughts out of his head. He needed to seem like he was fine when he went back out to Nancy. Not only did he not want to start her worrying or fussing—it had taken hours to get everyone out of the house today, with someone always trying to find an excuse to stay and watch over him—but she was already upset. That much he'd seen.

He looked up, opening the cupboard and taking out two glasses. He went for cutesy plastic ones, not trusting himself with the glass ones. He rummaged in the fridge until he found Joe's two liter of soda, taking it out and pouring some into each glass. His brother needed to lay off the stuff, and the attempts to belch the ABCs had gotten old months ago.

Joe still seemed to think annoying Frank was a good way of proving all of this was real—not only was he hovering worse than a mother hen, but he was also being everything that a younger brother was supposed to be—obnoxious, nosy, and overly playful.

Frank was just tired of all of it, but admitting that was like asking them to lock him up on a suicide watch again, so he wouldn't say anything. He'd just go see what had brought Nancy to their door and pretend he was capable of helping with that.

He took the glasses into the front room, handing one to Nancy. She took it and sipped from it, not reacting to his choice of beverage. He sat down in the other chair, giving her a look over before throwing out a theory that had just surfaced from the back of his mind.

“So... you and Ned are done.”

Nancy's head jerked up, and she spilled some of her drink on her lap, not noticing it. “How did you know?”

“That whole detective thing that doesn't shut off even if we want it to or think it should or must have by now,” Frank said, and she grimaced. He had to admit he didn't see why his brain still went toward puzzles and cases—he'd read over his father's cases and Joe's—since he knew that was what got them all into this mess in the first place. He knew he shouldn't work on any of them.

“Yeah,” she agreed, looking down at her cup. She shook her head. “I tried. I thought... I thought that by making this effort to be there through his treatment that I was doing the right thing. That I was making up for all the times I wasn't there for him. All I did was make him angry, and it wasn't even his programming—it was the past. It was all those failures from before—as much as he might have wanted to or tried to tell himself he could—he couldn't forgive me for them, for being there after someone messed with his head but not before. It was all... too little too late.”

Frank nodded, though he didn't know what he was supposed to say to that. He didn't think he had a right to say much of anything when his stalker was the one behind the brainwashing. Zollner had done that to Ned just because Nancy was Frank's friend. Nothing made that right. He didn't have any good response, no way to fix all the damage that had been done when Zollner came after him.

“I wanted to help him,” Nancy said, her voice low. “For once, I wasn't taking him for granted or pushing him aside for a case... and yet that still came between us.”

Frank adjusted his position. “I suppose it would seem like poor taste to say it was always going to eventually, but that's the thought that comes to mind—the one Joe actually says should comfort me. That Callie and I wouldn't have worked even if I hadn't gotten her kidnapped and brainwashed. I don't know. I suppose we had our differences and problems, every couple does, but some of them make it work. I'm not sure we were. That I was, I guess. There was always a case or Joe and dating wasn't half as important as those things or trying to figure out what I was actually trying to do with college. Callie came second to a lot of things, and that wasn't right. It's not why she left—she found doctors in Europe she really likes—but it's part of why even if we got past the brainwashing it wouldn't work out, and that assumes a lot that we could get past all of that guilt. I know I can't.”

Nancy nodded. “I don't... Ned doesn't want anything to do with me right now. Maybe forever. Do you still talk to Callie?”

“She sends me postcards.”

“And you think they're really from her?”

“Oh, hell, Nancy, don't even start that,” Frank said, putting a hand to his head. He didn't know if he did or didn't believe that the cards were from Callie. He was fortunate that she spoke to him at all, and he took it for what it was. He had to, or he'd go crazy.

She winced. “I'm sorry.”

He focused on his cup for a while, pretending he actually wanted to drink it. “I admit... it's crossed my mind. I don't... I try not to think about it. If it was somehow not her or it was the programming... I don't think I want to know.”

“Yeah.” Nancy agreed. She turned her cup over in her hands. “Has there been anything from... Zollner or Vallin?”

Frank shook his head. “Mercifully, no. No cards. No phone calls. If there were... Then I suppose I really would have lost my mind.”

* * *

“I think I should call Frank.”

Laura sighed as soon as the words were out of his mouth, and Joe almost grimaced, not sure how he'd ended up here with his mom and aunt running errands while his brother was home alone with nothing but accounting to keep him from the dark place that was his mind. Frank hadn't been the same since the first time Zollner took him, and while he was getting a lot better at faking it—disturbingly so—Frank wasn't better.

“Joseph Hardy, you are becoming a fussy old man,” Aunt Gertrude said, and Joe made a face at her. “You'd think you were incapable of functioning without your brother the way you go on.”

Joe folded his arms over his chest. “I am not incapable of functioning without Frank. I'm just a little more concerned about the guy who got tortured a few months ago, that's all. If you all think it's fine to leave him alone, then you do that. I think I'd feel better if I checked in with him.”

Gertrude huffed, and Joe rolled his eyes as he turned away from her, digging out his phone. He could use a distraction from all this agonizing over stupid crap, too, since neither his mom or his aunt seemed capable of making a decision about what they'd come to the store specifically to buy.

He hit the button, making the call, and then he waited for it to connect. It rang, rang, and eventually went to voicemail.

“Frank, it's Joe. You know, the brother you promised you would answer the phone for if I went along with all this shopping nonsense?” Joe asked, shaking his head as he left the message. “Call me back. Or text me. Right away. Just so I know you're not dead or something and I don't have to rush back. Come on. You know that was the only reason I agreed to go when you stayed behind. This is like torture. They can't make a decision. They'll keep me shopping for hours unless I say that you're not okay and I'm going home to you, so if you don't want that, call me back.”

He hung up and grimaced. Maybe Frank was just ignoring his cellphone or had left it somewhere he wasn't. It couldn't hurt to call the house phone, maybe even the one for Fenton's office. Joe dialed the other number and let it ring. _Damn it, Frank. Pick up the phone already._

“Frank, it's Joe. You're supposed to be picking up the phone. That was the deal. You're not supposed to abandon me to shopping torture with indecisive old biddies—I mean Gertrude, not Mom. I think Mom knows what she wants but if she buys it in front of Gertrude, the world will end because you know our aunt—she's a pill—”

Something sharp poked Joe in the side, and he grimaced, touching a hand to his back, trying to remember what he'd done to pull a muscle. He sighed. “And I don't actually mean any of that. Would you just pick up the phone already? Please, Frank?”

He didn't get an answer so he hung up. He lifted his hand up with a frown, not understanding why there was blood on his palm.

“Stupid snot faced brat.”

“Aunt Gertrude?”


	2. Insult to Injury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank gets a surprise. Joe has a fight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's interesting just how evil Zollner can be when he's not there in person. He has some good (terrible) reach.

* * *

“You haven't lost your mind,” Nancy said, and Frank snorted, not looking at her. She knew that wasn't much of a comfort—all she had were words, and Frank didn't have any reason to trust them when they disagreed with how he felt. She knew they were no more help to him than they were to her or to Ned.

She tried not to wince again. She'd meant to help, not make things worse, but she had with Ned, and she might have in coming here. Frank was doing his best, according to Joe and even Frank himself, but his best against what he'd been through still seemed like very little, slow progress that was frustrating everyone, though only Frank and Joe were honest about it.

“I don't know. It's still hard to tell what's real and what isn't,” Frank said. He frowned. “Did you hear a buzzing? Is that your phone? Joe made me put mine on the loudest most obnoxious ringer before he'd leave me alone, so it has to be yours.”

Nancy checked her phone, shaking her head when she didn't see any new notifications. “No, I didn't get any texts or calls.”

Frank grimaced, and she wished she'd lied just to take away that doubt from him. Not that it would have helped, not in the long term, but it might have made that look disappear. “My imagination, then.”

“Or something else,” Nancy offered. She shrugged, unable to come up with a real suggestion there. She was off her game, and this conversation was far from easy. Frank had so many issues to work through, and her bringing her mess here did not help things. She didn't want to make anything worse, so maybe she should leave. “It could have been some other electric humming. It's not like you mentioned any of that from your time with Zollner. He wasn't using sounds on you, was he?”

Frank shook his head, rubbing at his temple. “Not that I remember, but there are still plenty of gaps. I'm not sure of all that happened, even now. Not that I should expect to, since with all the drugs and the mind games—I won't get it all back. That's part of the trouble in so many ways...”

She set her cup down, wanting to give him some kind of comfort, any kind. She wasn't sure how to do that with words, and she found herself a bit hesitant after her disastrous attempts with Ned. “I wish there was something that I could say that would help, but I don't think I'm all that good at being even moral support these days.”

“I think you're taking on too much responsibility for what Ned decided. He has to work through what happened to him his own way, and if that means doing it without you, that's what he feels he needs. It's not about you being good at comfort or horrible at it. You can do everything in the world and still not have someone willing to let you in which is what makes all the difference.” Frank closed his eyes. “I'm not saying that because I did anything for Callie that she rejected—it wasn't like that with us. I was too guilty to even try.”

“You're just on the other side of it,” Nancy said, and he smiled ruefully. They both knew he wasn't the best at letting people help him. Joe had raged against that even before Zollner took Frank a second time, and this time—she doubted it was better, though she hadn't gotten as many calls from Joe as she did before. “And with what Zollner did, I'm not sure any of us can blame you for keeping your distance—you're still left wondering if any of this is real.”

Frank nodded. He gave her a slight smile. “You know, you still didn't answer my question.”

Nancy frowned, and then she went back over their talk to realize he was right. She'd never actually told him why she'd come. He'd figured part of it out himself, but he knew there was more, and he'd called her on it. “After Ned told me to go and we fought again, I... I just got in my rental and drove. I wasn't sure where to go. I took off from work, from school, everything. I took money from savings and found a place I was going to stay while I helped him, while I was there for him every day like I've never been before, but when he didn't want that, I didn't know what to do. I can go back—back home, I mean. I don't know if I want to do that right away or not, though. I have the time off, and a part of me says I should use it and everything I've already arranged, but... I'm not sure I see the point in staying by Ned, even if I've already booked a place. I could keep hoping he'll change his mind, but he might be right. This might be nothing more than guilt, and I can't use him for atonement.”

Frank laughed, and the bitterness in it made Nancy want to wince. “I don't think atonement is possible.”

* * *

Nancy seemed unable to come up with a response to Frank's words, not that he thought that she should have one. They'd all try and tell him differently, that he was wrong about atonement and it was possible, but Nancy couldn't, not when she didn't see a way to make up for her mistakes with Ned. She still hadn't forgiven herself for the case she'd taken right before they found out about Ned's brainwashing, and she might say no one should blame Frank for bringing Zollner down on all of them, but that made her a hypocrite because she couldn't forgive herself for Zollner targeting Ned because of her. They all carried guilt. Frank just figured more of it should be his, no matter what the others said.

He had found Zollner. The man had become obsessed with him. Those facts would not change, and they condemned him over and over again.

_“You see, Franklin? I cannot number the ways that you are perfect for what I want,” Zollner said, smiling and patting Frank's cheek in a way that made him feel sick. Every touch this man gave him revolted him, and most of them hurt, but there was no escaping them, no way to avoid them. As it was, he was stuck with the words and hands, insidious things tormenting his mind as well as his body._

_“I am never going to be what you want,” Frank said. “As long as I can think for myself, I will always fight against you. You'd have to turn me into one of your mindless zombies to do it, but you haven't.”_

_“I don't have to,” Zollner told him with another sickening smile. “You are already mine.”_

Frank tried to wash the taste of the memory out of his mouth, but his cup was empty. He didn't remember finishing it, but his memory wasn't the best these days. He set the cup to the side, leaning back in the chair.

“Frank,” Nancy began, but then the doorbell interrupted them. Frank frowned. He hadn't been expecting anyone in the first place, but having Nancy show up should have been the end of company for the day. He didn't think any of the guys would come around—they had lives and Frank hadn't exactly been social—but it could have been one of them instead.

“I'll get it.”

She nodded, not following him as he went to the door. He opened it up and stared at the woman in front of him, trying to decide what she was doing on his doorstep. He didn't think he knew her, since a he would have figured someone with that color of blonde hair would have stuck in his memory. That was so bright it was almost white but then the shifting light made it seem like another color altogether. Platinum didn't quite cover the shade, though she might have been trying to recapture a Marilyn Monroe look somehow. She almost had the glasses for it, thick with black rims, though her suit was modern and seemed tailored, though Frank wasn't sure about that, either.

His observations felt off, and he knew that was still Zollner, still those lingering doubts about how real anything was—or if he should try and continue on after all that had happened. “Can I help you?”

She didn't smile or introduce herself. “Is this the Hardy Detective Agency?”

Frank nodded. He supposed he should be glad she wasn't a salesperson, though maybe she just wasn't good at the pitch. “It is, but my father's out of town right now. What did you need?”

“You.”

“Excuse me?”

This time she almost smiled. “You are Franklin Hardy, are you not?”

He almost wanted to deny that, but it would be difficult since he'd already opened the door and said his father wasn't home. Still, he wasn't sure what to make of her standing on his doorstep saying she needed him. The idea was unsettling at best, and he didn't know how to respond to it, especially since she'd used Franklin. Zollner's habit of calling him that made him sick when he heard the name. “What do you want?”

“This is for you,” she said, holding out a sealed manila envelope. He made no attempt to take it, not trusting any of this. “It's in regard to your inheritance.”

“My what?”

* * *

Joe stared at his aunt, trying to make sense of what had happened. He was bleeding, and she had a knife, but since when did Gertrude carry around knives? Oh, sure, she used them when she was cooking, but that wasn't a kitchen knife. That was a switchblade, and his aunt didn't have one of those—or at least, Joe would have _sworn_ she didn't. Except here they were, and she was standing in front of him, and she definitely had a knife.

“Um... Gertrude...”

“Spoiled rotten, that's what you are,” she went on, her eyes looking at him but not seeing him, looking through him in a way that made Joe think of horror films and not his aunt. Her voice, too, had that creepy edge—like she was angry. Scary angry. “Thinking you're something special when you're nothing but hot air and an empty stomach.”

Joe shook his head, scrambling for a way to handle this. He knew what it sounded like, but this couldn't be what he thought it was. That was too crazy. Why Gertrude, of all people? Why would she be doing this? “I am so much more than my stomach. What gives? I thought you liked cooking for us. You never complained before. And if this is about what I said to Frank—I was just worried about him and freaking out. It was not worth... this.”

“You can't think without your brother, can you?” Gertrude asked in a snide tone, snorting as she finished. “Frank's the smart one. You're nothing without him. No brains. Not one lick of them. You can't think, can't function, not without big brother Frank.”

Joe clenched his fist. That accusation was one he got a lot, but it wasn't true, and it wouldn't bother him half as much if it wasn't coming from someone as close to them as their aunt. “Look, I know you're a little out of it right now—okay _a lot_ out of it because you're talking like—like you're one of Zollner's pet toys—but you know better than that. You of all people do.”

She didn't answer him, just took a swipe at him again, and Joe was surprised not only by her speed but the viciousness of her attack. He shouldn't have been, not after Callie, but this was his aunt. She was not a fighter. She was older and past her prime, if he was honest about it, so where was all this strength coming from? Her concealed anger and resentment over years of caring for them?

“I thought you were the brawn,” Gertrude said. “Your brother is the brains. We already established that. Yet you can't even fight.”

“The hell I can't,” Joe snapped, losing his temper even though he tried to tell himself none of this was real—this wasn't his aunt talking, not really. “I was raised a gentleman, remember? I wasn't about to smack my aunt in the face to stop her.”

“Coward.”

She was _really_ starting to piss him off, and he was about to forget that he was a gentleman and that she was his aunt. He shook his head, balling his hand into a fist. “I'm not going to do what I did with Callie with you. I won't just sit there and let you hurt me. I swear, I will deck you if you don't stop.”

“Can't take the truth?”

“Can't take the fact that you've flipped your lid and gone over to the dark side,” he corrected. “Though I think you were already half there—and you even had cookies. Damn. I should have known.”

His aunt snarled, swiping at him again. He dodged it, getting hold of her hand and twisting it until she let go of the blade. He kicked it away, trying to keep her still. He supposed he was lucky this was a brainwashed fight and not something else. His aunt could have chosen to scream and bring the whole store down on them, making everyone think he was the bad guy here. He would look like one, holding an old—well, older—woman in a way that might break her wrist or arm, trying to keep her from hitting him. The knife might have told the others that he wasn't just beating up some defenseless female, but he didn't want to let her have it again. He'd almost died before just trying to talk Callie down instead of fighting. He wouldn't do that again.

“Joseph Hardy, what do you think you're doing?”

“Mom,” Joe began, wincing when he saw Laura standing there. “I—she's—”

“Let go of Gertrude, now,” Laura ordered. “What were you thinking?”

“You have to be kidding, Laura. Joseph doesn't think. He doesn't know how to do that, and you let him get away with it. You let Frank do that for him, or you rescue him from his own stupidity. He never feels the consequences of his actions.” Gertrude elbowed him in the side, and Joe almost lost his hold on her when she connected with the stab wound. He swore, and she kicked him in the foot.

“Gertrude, what are you doing?”

“Mom, it's not her,” Joe said, still trying to keep his aunt under control. “She's not... herself. She's... It's programming. She's like the others. Like Callie and Ned... She's been brainwashed. And she tried to kill me.”


	3. Doubts Great and Small

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe's more worried about his brother than himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had another hard time with this. It wasn't that I didn't know what I was doing for at least the first scene, but it just did not want to be written. So I ended up with this in the end, and I'm not sure what it is, but it is an update, so that is what I will go with for now.

* * *

Nancy finished her drink and set her cup down with a frown. She would have thought that Frank would have been back from the door by now, since she didn't know what would take that long without him returning, but maybe it was a client for Fenton. If Frank was getting information for that, he could be a while. She sighed, stretching. She still hadn't asked the question she needed to ask—maybe she'd been hoping Frank would just offer, though she supposed that was a little presumptuous of her.

She rose, about to check on him when she heard something buzzing. She turned, rummaging around Frank's chair until she found his cellphone. Three missed calls. No wonder he'd thought he heard buzzing. He must have turned off his ringer even though he'd thought it was on. She shook her head, deciding that she'd go ahead and answer the phone when it rang again with Joe's name on the screen.

“Frank! Thank goodness. Do you know how many times I've called you? Why weren't you picking up? Do you know what I thought had happened? I don't think I—”

“I think Frank has every idea what you think had happened,” Nancy told him, amused by the near panic in Joe's voice. It wouldn't be funny if Frank wasn't fine, but since she knew that Frank was okay, she was able to find the humor in the situation.

“Nancy? What are you doing answering Frank's phone?” She could hear Joe frowning. “Wait—did I dial the wrong number? No, I swear I called Frank. Again.”

She almost laughed. “You did. I just happened to pick up his phone when I heard it vibrating and figured you were desperate to get a hold of him.”

“I kind of am,” Joe admitted. “I just—you're answering his phone, which has me a little concerned—a lot concerned—because you weren't at my house when I left and Frank isn't on the other end of the line. I'm not sure what to think.”

Nancy figured she had better reassure him before Joe lost it since he sounded close to the edge. “Frank went to get the door.”

“You let Frank get the door?”

Nancy rolled her eyes. She knew Joe would be upset when he couldn't reach his brother, but this was almost ridiculous. “Not everything that comes to your door is a bad thing, Joe, or did you have something to say about me crossing your doorstep earlier? I know it's difficult to let go of the fear that Frank could end up taken—again—but you're not helping him heal by hovering. You're making his fears worse. You have to find a way to accept that Frank has to have space to live if he's going to continue making progress.”

“I get that. I do. It's just... Frank didn't answer and then Aunt Gertrude attacked me and—”

“Your aunt attacked you?” Nancy asked, unable to believe what she'd just heard. She knew that Gertrude could be a difficult woman to get along with at times—she didn't know that Gertrude liked her much at all—but would she really hurt her nephew?

“Yeah. She stabbed me in the back.” Joe muttered something else under his breath and then cleared his throat. “I... Zollner must have gotten to her. Can you check on Frank for me? I don't—if Frank was just answering the door, he should have been back by now. Can you check on him? If my aunt can turn on me, then—hey, let go of that. I told you. I'm fine. Stop trying to take my phone.”

“Joe, if you got stabbed, you need some kind of medical attention,” Nancy told him as she started toward the door. “I know your brother would want that, and in a second, you'll hear it from him because I am walking toward the door and about to put him on the phone.”

“Okay, fine,” Joe said, but then the call disconnected right as Nancy reached the front door. She lowered the phone and looked around, frowning.

“Frank? Please tell me you did not disappear on me.”

* * *

“Enough. You need to let the paramedics look over you, now,” Laura said, taking Joe's phone out of his hand. He glared at his mother, shaking his head. He had _just_ gotten Nancy to say she was going to find Frank, and if he spoke to his brother, he would be fine with letting anyone examine him, but not before then. He needed to make sure Frank was okay.

“Mom, just let me talk to Frank and I will do whatever I have to do, but I need to make sure that Frank is—”

“Your brother did not get stabbed. You did,” Laura said, shaking her head. “I don't know why you are still standing here. You should have been in the back of that ambulance already. You know that. I dealt with the police, explained things with your aunt to them, and she is now in protective custody pending a mental exam, but you haven't even been looked at. This is ridiculous.”

“I needed to get a hold of Frank and I was just about to talk to him when you took away my phone,” Joe insisted. “Come on. Aunt Gertrude just flipped her lid. You think we don't need to talk to Frank? What planet are you living on?”

“I know we need to contact your brother,” Laura said, annoyed even as her voice stayed almost calm. “That does not mean that takes precedence over you getting looked at. I need to know that you are not going to die on me despite your insistence that you're fine. Whatever this is—and don't you _dare_ say Zollner is still alive and tormenting us—that man is _dead_ —you are not allowed to be so concerned over Frank that you kill yourself in the process. That is unacceptable. Now get over there and get yourself looked at by those paramedics or so help me, I will drag you over there myself.”

Joe sighed. He knew he couldn't really afford to argue with his mother, and he didn't want to claim that Zollner was alive, either. He had to figure that any programming his aunt had was done long before Zollner or Vallin disappeared in the collapse of their base. He refused to believe that any of them were alive. They were dead. Dead, dead, dead.

“Fine. I will get checked out by the paramedics—if you call Nancy back and actually talk to Frank.”

“Nancy?”

Joe shrugged. “She's at the house, apparently. I didn't have a chance to ask why. I just convinced her to get Frank on the line right before you took away the phone, so if you could please call him, then I would feel a lot better about all of this.”

Laura shook her head. “The last thing I want to believe is that anything happened to your brother, and I doubt that it did when she was there. I will call him, but not before you get looked at. So march your stubborn behind right over to that ambulance and get them to clear you or say you need the hospital—and if they do, no objections. You're going. If need be, I will drag you there.”

Joe decided there was no point in arguing with his mother again. She wasn't going to back down, and he knew he needed to be sure that the wound wasn't bad. He didn't think it was—it would have affected him by now if it was, but he couldn't be certain—not when everything was still in the air and all he could think about was getting in touch with Frank. He could be ignoring something or still in shock—his aunt had attacked him; he thought he had a right to be a little shocked—and if something was wrong with Frank, then Joe needed to be at his best.

He started for the paramedics, stopping once to look back at his mother. She gave him a look, pointing at the ambulance. He rolled his eyes and approached the nearest EMT. “I think you're actually here for me. Sorry about—”

“You're bleeding, you idiot,” the female EMT said, dragging him over to the back of the ambulance. “Did you some how miss that or were you too busy trying to be brave?”

“I—It didn't seem that bad,” Joe said, defensive. He wasn't sure how to take her reaction, and while he could lay on some Hardy charm, he didn't know that flirting was worth being poked and prodded, even if it was what his mom wanted. “I mean, if it was, I should have known by now, right?”

She snorted, peeling up his shirt to get a better look at the wound. “Good grief, Joseph, what have you been up to?”

Joe jerked, pulling away from her. “What did you just say?”

“I asked what you got up to.”

He nodded. “Yeah, sure, but what's with the Joseph bit? I don't know you. You don't know me. You should not be calling me that. Not that anyone who knows me calls me Joseph, but you... did. You did, only I have no idea who you are.”

“Relax. Everyone knows who you are. You're one of the Hardys. You're pretty famous around here, or did you manage to forget that?”

Joe grimaced. He hadn't, but he couldn't help thinking that wasn't the real reason she'd used that name. Damn it, Zollner had him locked in mind games, too, just as bad as Frank, seeing threats and manipulation everywhere.

Of course, it really didn't help that he'd just been stabbed by his aunt, of all people.

* * *

_“You've seen this before,” Zollner said, standing behind Frank, his voice a twisted, sick whisper in Frank's ear, the sort that made him want to break and shatter and accept the crazy, retreating far off into some hollow of his mind that might save him. Only Frank hasn't been able to find anywhere like that. He'd never been good at that sort of thing. Joe was the more imaginative of the two of them, while Frank got bogged down in logic and reasons. He might lead them in a case because he could think a problem through, but when it came to being the one who made up the games, that was Joe. He was always so annoyed with Frank for finding the flaws in his stories._

_Frank had never really understood just how much he hated that he couldn't be as at ease in the games, that he was too practical for half of them, until his lack of imagination for anything but worst case scenarios left him without a retreat even in his mind._

_All he ever saw was the bad._

_“You know what this is,” Zollner went on, gesturing to the display in front of them. “Just a taste of it, actually, but you see my empire before you. All of this will be yours someday, you know.”_

_“No. I don't.” Frank felt dizzy, not sure if he'd just gotten another dose of drugs or if something else wanted to knock him off his feet. He grabbed the nearest thing for support, and Zollner laughed when it was him._

_“Of course you do. I've claimed you. You're mine,” Zollner repeated, smiling at him like an indulgent parent. “And when you accept that, all of this will be yours.”_

Frank jerked himself out of the memory and made a stumbling dash for the bushes next to the house before losing everything that wasn't in his stomach. He hadn't eaten today—no appetite after the fight to be left alone in the house—and what little soda he'd had wasn't enough to cover the nausea that his mind had dug up after the papers and the damn memories.

He sat down, not sure he felt up to moving any time soon. He looked out at the yard. She was gone, but then she should be. He'd told her to go, that he didn't have any kind of inheritance to speak of—his parents and aunt were very much alive and not going to leave him anything they didn't split down the middle with Joe—and she had just smiled.

_He did tell me you would say that, Franklin._

Frank shuddered, wrapping his arms around his legs and trying to find some semblance of calm. His one consolation was that the woman had gone after leaving the papers. He didn't see any cars except the one he'd noticed when he let Nancy in—he assumed that was her rental—and he had seen a black one before that woman threw everything off by saying she needed him.

Her speech had to have been prepped by Zollner, almost word for word, but for something like that, Frank would have to assume that bastard was alive, and that would man—no, it wasn't possible. Zollner—both Zollners—and Vallin had been trapped in the rumble. They never got out.

He closed his eyes, leaning his head on his knees and trying to calm himself with deliberate slow breaths. He didn't want to puke again or get lost in more memories. He wasn't sure which of them were real, and he knew his mind was capable of making any of them worse without even knowing that was what he was doing.

“Frank?”

He bit back a grimace. He'd almost forgotten about Nancy, and he did not want her seeing him like this. Bad enough all the times Joe had seen him this bad or worse, but Nancy wasn't Joe. She wasn't the brother that barely respected privacy on a good day. She was a friend, and Frank wasn't interested in losing her respect, even if he knew he didn't deserve that from anyone.

He tried to force himself to his feet, but his body didn't want to cooperate, and he almost fell over trying to stand. That was good. Great, perfect, even. He settled back down, letting the nausea win for another minute.

“There you are. You had me worried for a second. Joe didn't help matters, since he seemed convinced anyone coming to your door was going to abduct you—”

“Erroneous assumption. I was taken at my car, not at the door, the first time and the second... That wasn't the same by a long shot.” Frank winced. “And I just made a terrible pun.”

Nancy knelt next to him, frowning. “What happened? And don't try and say nothing because this is very obviously not nothing and you know it.”

Frank swallowed down the taste in his throat, still losing the battle with his stomach. “I... Was there an envelope on the porch? Manila? Did...”

“I didn't see one,” Nancy told him, and he stared at her. He knew he hadn't taken it, not from that woman or off the porch when he'd made his dash to the bushes. No, it should still be there.

Unless... It never existed in the first place.


	4. Tensions and Tempers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank goes to see his brother at the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It probably would have been better if I could have found a cliffhanger to end on. Strangely, I didn't.

* * *

“I heard the doorbell.”

Frank's head jerked up, and he frowned at Nancy like he didn't understand what she was saying. She wasn't sure he had, not with that far off look on his face. She wasn't as familiar with Frank's fugues as Joe was, but she'd seen a few of them before returning to River Heights, enough to know that this was one. Frank had gotten lost in whatever thought he'd just had—she assumed it was the one that said none of this was real, since they'd been discussing it not even ten minutes ago.

She put a hand on his arm. “I heard the doorbell, too. So that was not your imagination. It happened. It was real.”

He winced. “Nancy—”

“And the buzzing from earlier _was_ a phone. Your phone. Joe was calling you. He's still pretty freaked out about you not answering him, so you will have to call him back.”

Frank ran his hands through his hair, agitated. If he tried to rip it out, she'd stop him, but she hoped it wouldn't go that far. “I am losing my mind.”

“Not yet,” she told him, moving her hands to his, easing them out of his hair. Joe would be better at this—she couldn't help thinking of her absolute failure with Ned and how bad she must be at this sort of thing. Still, she had to try. She was here, and Frank needed someone. “Someone was at least here long enough to ring the doorbell. Maybe they didn't stay after that, but they did ring that bell.”

Frank looked at her, misery visible in his eyes. It hurt, seeing it, because she knew he wouldn't want to be that obvious, that vulnerable. He would have wanted to pretend he was fine. He couldn't, and he hated that. She should have pretended she didn't know, but it was too late for that. “And what? I just... imagined that woman and the inheritance? Zollner said over and over again that he chose me, that I was his heir, that everything would be mine after he broke me, but to picture here here? To hallucinate her giving me paperwork for that? That's too much. Too far.”

“Assuming this woman was working for Zollner, and she'd have to be to deliver those papers here—there's nothing _to_ inherit because none of what he had was obtained legally—she'd have been told or programmed to do it in the way that would bother you the most,” Nancy said. “What all did she say and do? Maybe there is more to it than we know just yet.”

“I... She called me Franklin. The way he always did. It... I can't hardly stand to hear someone use it now, and if Mom or Dad slips and lectures me—I just about lose it,” Frank admitted. He shivered, though the afternoon was still warm. “So that part she must have been coached in, I think. I... She also told me he expected me to reject the inheritance, to say there wasn't any.”

“And then she let the papers fall?”

Frank nodded. “When I wouldn't take them, she just dropped them. Then she said that part about him and I couldn't—I—there was this time he was standing over a model of his empire, telling me it was mine—I was so drugged up then I was sick and—I stumbled over to the bushes and puked. That's about it, until you found me.”

“She took the papers.”

He frowned. “Why would she do that? The whole point was to screw with my head by leaving the inheritance, right?”

“Yes, but if she takes the papers and disappears on you while you're still having doubts about what is real, doesn't that do a lot more damage?”

Frank lowered his head. “Yes. It does.”

“Zollner has not won yet,” Nancy told him, taking his hand. “He may have left plenty of damage in his wake, and he has you questioning everything, but you're still alive. So is Joe. Your family. Everyone you care about. There is a way back from this. We might not have it today or even two years from now, but we still have the chance to find it. Zollner doesn't. He doesn't have anything left. His organization is gone, you're free, and he died in that collapse.”

Frank sighed. “It doesn't feel like he's gone.”

Nancy winced. She did not want to tell him what she needed to not after that. “Not with all he left behind to continue hurting you and those you care about, no, but he had contingency plans, didn't he? He thought three steps ahead of one of the best minds I know—yours—and had to have planned for this, for the off-chance he didn't survive. The inheritance, the brainwashings... They were meant to keep hurting us even if he's not here to do it or watch it happen.”

“That's what you think this is?”

She swallowed. It had to be. “Frank, he... Zollner got to Gertrude. Your aunt. She... stabbed Joe.”

Frank swore.

* * *

“You know, this is a little old, even for us.”

Joe's head snapped up, unable to stop himself from reacting to that voice and the relief that came from hearing it, from _seeing_ Frank standing there in his doorway. That almost made getting dragged all the way down to the hospital worth it. He hadn't wanted to do it, but his mom had insisted, the paramedic siding with him. Now that he was all stitched up, he could go, but Frank was here, and he didn't have to run just yet.

Frank wasn't fine—Joe knew his brother well enough to see the non-physical scars were troubling him again—but he was whole and here and that had to count for something.

Joe shrugged. “Ah, you know us. We're fans of the routine. Boring, really.”

Frank snorted, shaking his head as he came further into the room. “I don't know how you manage to get yourself in so much trouble. You'd think it should be someone else, that you'd used up all the trouble in the world by now—”

“Hey, you were the one who got the creepy stalker who abducted you _twice,”_ Joe shot back, knowing he shouldn't but getting defensive all the same. “Sorry. That really wasn't... called for. I am glad you're here.”

“Nancy told me you were worried about me. Think this is a case of pot and kettle, though, since you got stabbed, not me. Not this time, anyway.”

Joe chose to ignore that one. He knew Frank had managed to do as much as he could to keep the scars and tally from everyone, but Zollner had liked knives, and his brother had the marks all over him to prove it. “I must have set her off with something I said, but I didn't even know I was doing it. I mean—Gertrude? Who'd actually think she could be a target for Zollner?”

Frank shook his head. “I hadn't really thought of her as one. I still can't understand why you weren't, but Zollner had strange reasons for all his choices. Maybe he thought of her like...”

“Like what?” Joe asked, waiting and watching Frank fidget. Some of what went on in Frank's head was still too scary to think about, and if this was bothering him that much, Joe didn't think he wanted to know. Trouble was—if he didn't ask, he'd just make things worse. He needed to know.

“I... It was something he said about Gary.”

“You mean Gary that was a professional hitman and almost killed Nancy?”

Frank nodded, eyes a little distant, same with his voice. “Zollner said... Gary had an aptitude for it. That he just needed a little encouragement to be what he was because all of it was already there, waiting to be let out. I... I don't know why I...”

Joe grimaced. “Well, I called her a pill earlier and said it wasn't that hard for her to go to the dark side. I think you could have a point there. She did have a tendency to be... mean, to put it lightly.”

“Yeah.”

The silence after that was awkward, and Joe wanted Frank to say something, anything, rather than just stand there. He should have known better. That wasn't Frank. He was more comfortable with the quiet, always lost in his head.

“So... Nancy. How did that happen?”

Frank shrugged. “Not completely sure. She showed up this afternoon, but we didn't get a chance to talk much before all of this happened. Ask her for more details. It's not really my place to share.”

“Oh, sure, hide behind _that_ one,” Joe teased, and Frank almost smiled at the words. That was a victory these days, so Joe took it, almost ran with it. “Should have known you'd play up the gentleman angle, especially after Gertrude flipped on me for being so 'ungrateful.'”

Frank rolled his eyes. “If that was all it took for her to 'flip,' this should have happened years ago.”

“True.” Joe gave his brother another look. “It's not Nancy being here that's eating at you, is it?”

“Don't be ridiculous. Why would I be bothered by her being here? I'm not.”

“Something's up with you.”

Frank sighed. “Just another day of mind games and not knowing what's real. That's it. And no, I don't want to talk about it. Mom and Nancy should have been here by now. I'm going to go find them.”

“Oh, sure, avoid the question,” Joe muttered, shaking his head. Thing was, his brother seemed to be taking this too well, staying a lot calmer than he should have been, but then again, so was Joe. He didn't know that it even seemed _real_ what his aunt had done. Sure, Gertrude was hard to take sometimes, but a killer? It still didn't seem possible. “Who was at the door?”

“No one.”

“You are such a liar. A _bad_ liar,” Joe muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “I would say I don't believe this, but I do. Of course you'd lie about that. You'd lie about anything that has to do with Zollner since you have it in your head you can pretend you're fine when you're not and—”

“Like you really admitted that stab wound was anything,” Frank snapped, glaring at him. “Oh, no, because Joe never gets more than a scratch, and he's only in the hospital because people overreact like crazy even though he's the worst overreacter there is.”

“I am not—”

“Do I have to separate you two?” their mother asked, coming into the room, and Joe shook his head, almost laughing. Frank just folded his arms over his chest, saying nothing. “Well?”

“We're fine,” Joe said, because they weren't really fighting over anything important, and they'd forget about it tomorrow anyway. “We'd be better if I could get out of here. Did the doctor say I could go? Because I am _so_ ready to go.”

“Of course you are,” Frank said, and Joe gave him a look, tempted to flip him off.

“Hey, Mom, why don't you ask Frank who was at the door today?”

* * *

Frank shook his head. Sometimes his affection for his brother could not overcome his frustration with what Joe had done. He didn't know how it was possible for siblings to be so annoying, but Joe had it perfected into an art. Most of the time, it was fine, but even Frank had his limits, and he ran too close to any of them now, as damaged as he was by Zollner and his torture. He was not talking about what happened at the door, not yet, since he still wasn't sure if he understood it. Nancy's theory helped, but it didn't answer every question and didn't mean he was ready to discuss any of it with Joe.

“I just spoke to your father,” Laura said, not taking up Joe's bait. “He's headed home.”

“He didn't have to rush,” Frank said, not wanting to pull Fenton back from the first traveling case he'd been willing to take since Zollner abducted Frank the second time. Frank knew his family was trying to be supportive, but he didn't want them hovering, either. Fenton needed to work like he would be if nothing had happened to Frank, like things were normal. “There's nothing he can do for Gertrude right now.”

“Did you just hear yourself, Frank?” Joe demanded. “How can you say something like that?”

“It's the truth,” Frank said, shrugging. “If you think about it logically—Dad's not a psychiatrist. He can't erase the programming. He can't undo it. He could be another trigger for her. All we know right now is that you are. You don't even know exactly what you said that caused it. Bringing Dad home could actually make it worse than it is now.”

Joe started to protest, but Laura shook her head. “Your brother does have a point. I tried to tell your father the same thing, but he wasn't willing to listen when his sister was in trouble. I think we all know just how much of a family trait _that_ is.”

Frank smiled, amused, and Joe had to acknowledge the same thing. That streak ran hard and fast in their family, something none of them could deny. “So there's no stopping Dad from coming back. That doesn't change things. We can't fix Gertrude in an instant—if at all—and we don't know who else might be under his control.”

“He's dead,” Laura said. “He is not controlling anyone.”

Frank swallowed. He didn't know that he was convinced that Zollner was dead. That was, Nancy had said, part of the game, part of what Zollner wanted and would have put in place before he died. He would have wanted lingering doubts and questions hanging over Frank's head for the rest of his miserable life.

“Not actively,” Nancy said, and Frank looked over at her, not sure if she had come in around the same time as his mother or not. She must have, since the only reason he'd made it to Joe's room alone was because she'd stopped to talk to his mom. “That doesn't mean he didn't start some of it before he took Frank. What he did to Ned, what he did to Callie, all of that was set in motion months before he went after Frank again. Zollner was a long term planner. He had to have contingency plans for if he died or failed to convert Frank.”

Joe grimaced. “I hate the idea of him getting the better of us even when he's dead.”

Nancy shrugged. “None of us like it, but we're all still dealing with the effects of it. Some of us more than others.”

Frank didn't even bother looking at his brother. “Not a word.”

Joe laughed. “Like I have to say anything. We all know she meant you.”

“Don't start,” Frank warned him, his patience almost nonexistent. He couldn't help feeling on edge after the woman and inheritance claim, and he knew he wasn't going to shrug that off anytime soon. He just needed Joe to stop pushing. It also didn't help that he was back at another hospital, and he couldn't help remembering that Vallin had used his position as Frank's doctor to manipulate him.

He fought against the shudders, gripping his own arms hard enough to bruise. He was not going there. Not again. No. He flat out refused.

“Let's go home,” Laura said. “We have a guest, and I think we could do with some good company for a change.”

“I don't know,” Joe teased, getting close to Nancy. “You see any good company around here?”

“Sure,” Nancy told him, and as he grinned at her, she added, “Frank.”

Frank snorted. “Even I know that's not true.”


	5. No Consolation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone tries to come to grips with what happened earlier that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's interesting to me sometimes how hard it can be to get fic to be written. I knew what was happening in the first part of the chapter, but that scene took forever to get past. And then I found myself tempted by other crossovers for shows I'm behind on watching and wondering just what insanity I'm in the middle of because I already have a crossover I can't make progress on. *rolls eyes at self*

* * *

“So much for good company, right?” Joe asked, taking the chair across from his brother.

Frank shook his head, like he was not sure if his brother was attempting to joke or not, but it wasn't all that funny either way. “I don't think it was the company.”

“No, I suppose it wasn't,” Joe agreed. Their mother had tried hard to put on the pretense that they were all fine and good through dinner, but the meal she'd made was barely edible. None of them had said anything, not even Joe, but she'd excused herself early and was already upstairs in bed.

“I'm glad it's not the company,” Nancy said, and Joe moved over to make a space for her. She gave him a grateful smile, and he leaned over to pull her into a hug. “Wait—what is this?”

“Seriously, you think I could let you get away without giving you a proper hug? We didn't get one at the hospital because someone was moody and others of us were too preoccupied by the fact that my aunt stabbed me. Besides, you didn't show up at our house out of the blue without a reason.” Joe nudged her. “So, spill. What brings the great Nancy Drew to us? Not that we are not glad to see you, because we are, but we also know you and—Frank already knows. Damn. So... I do get told, don't I?”

Nancy sighed. “I... I ended up here after... after talking with Ned.”

Joe opened his mouth, shut it, and opened it again. He didn't know what to say, not when charm wasn't appropriate and the dozens of other responses running around his head were the sort of things that made his aunt snap on him. He sighed. He didn't have a good way of asking her if she and Ned were done for good, but he had a feeling he knew that answer. What he didn't know was what that meant for anyone—not her, not Ned... “So... You planning on staying a while?”

Nancy hesitated. “I... I don't actually know what I'm doing. I've got time off, but my plans didn't work out. I still have to decide what I'm doing.”

“My advice would be to sleep on it and decide in the morning,” Frank said, rising.

Joe frowned. “Where do you think you're going?”

“Upstairs. To bed, if you must know, Mr. Nosy.”

Joe folded his arms over his chest. “Since when do you sleep? You don't have to go upstairs. You shouldn't bother. You're not going to sleep, so avoiding it down here with company is a lot better than lying up there by yourself and you still haven't said who was at the door earlier.”

“No one,” Frank said, angry. “There was no one there. Now leave it alone.”

He walked away then without looking back. Joe leaned back in his chair, frustrated. He didn't understand why his brother kept dodging the question. If it was nothing, as Frank wanted it to be, he wouldn't make such a big deal out of it. Joe didn't have to be a detective to know that, and he didn't have to know his brother as well as he did, either. The whole thing was so obvious it stunk.

Joe turned to Nancy. “Okay, that's it. Who the hell was at the door? And don't go along with his 'no one' routine because I'm not fooled by it in the slightest.”

Nancy sighed. Joe knew she didn't want to be in the middle of this, but he would push again and again until he got the answers he needed. If she cared about Frank at all—and he knew she did—then she would tell him.

“Tell me. Because I'm not dropping it, and whatever happened is eating at him, and he can't ignore this crap, not like before—”

“Joe, you can't push him like this. I know you are doing it from a good place in your heart that is really worried about your brother, and I know you've had your reasons to be, but not everything can be pushed until it gives. Frank's situation is still delicate, and pushing is only the right solution part of the time. Sometimes Frank needs you to push. Sometimes... he needs you to back off,” Nancy told him. She shifted, studying her hands as she kept speaking. “That said... I'm not—there was someone at the door, though she gave Frank enough reason to doubt that—which is why he doesn't want to tell you; he doesn't want to argue over the reality of any of it or why it is happening—and she claimed to be here about Frank's inheritance.”

Joe frowned. “Frank doesn't have any kind of inheritance. Our parents are alive. Aunt Gertrude may have been locked up a couple hours ago, but she's not dead. She's fine. And we don't have any other long lost relatives that would—No. Not him. Not Zollner.”

Nancy nodded reluctantly. “Yes, Zollner. Supposedly she was there to give Frank notice about the inheritance he'd left for him.”

Joe shook his head. “That sick son of a—”

“And then, when Frank was distracted, she disappeared with the papers she was giving him, leaving him to wonder if she'd even been there in the first place.”

Joe balled a fist, wanting to hurt someone. He knew he couldn't. He couldn't get at the monster behind all this because that monster was dead. “You believe she was there, though. That it wasn't just Frank's imagination.”

“I heard the bell, and I don't think Frank made any of it up,” Nancy agreed. “If... If Zollner was alive, this would seem a perfect way to continue his hold on Frank and that long term goal he had of breaking Frank's mind.”

“Zollner is dead.”

“I know,” Nancy said. “That doesn't mean that he wouldn't have set up this sort of thing before he died. We discussed that earlier.”

“I know we did but—” Joe stopped when he heard something loud thump the ceiling above their heads. The house shook with it, and he was on his feet and running before he had fully registered what just happened.

* * *

Frank knew stomping up the stairs was a childish act, and he figured he could leave those to his brother most of the time. He didn't need to give into them, even as much as he knew that he needed some sort of outlet for all of that frustration. He was tempted to hit something, break something, but he would just get some distance between him and his brother and once he had it, he'd be able to calm down. He'd be able to start thinking again, to work through all of what happened today.

His aunt.

Gertrude had stabbed Joe, and while he thought that maybe Zollner's comment about people who were close to it being easier to push, some of them more susceptible than most, Frank wasn't sure that truly applied to his aunt. She was disapproving, bitter maybe, but a killer? If she could be pushed to that point—who else?

And why the hell wasn't Zollner using Joe? Why had that man never gone after the most obvious choice? Wouldn't Joe, with all his insensitivity, be a better choice? Why was it that Zollner had never gone for the one person whose betrayal or loss would hurt Frank the most? The guy had claimed, over and over, that he intended to break Frank, but he'd never used the best, most effective way of doing that to him, not once.

Frank shook his head again, giving his parents' bedroom a glance before heading toward his own. His mother was in there. He knew that. He could go speak to her, try and see how she might be feeling, but he had no idea how to help his mother cope with this. He wasn't even sure how she saw Gertrude—was the woman like a sister to her or more like a thorn in the flesh that she had to put up with because she was Fenton's sister?

Maybe she was fortunate. All of this would be a lot harder for her if they were close, if they had the same sort of twisted relationship he had with Joe. He wasn't sure that came anything close to normal, even if it wasn't perverted and wrong in _that_ sense. Their codependency was something he should have broken years ago, but he was too weak to manage it.

He pushed his door open and walked into his bedroom. Maybe a shower would help, get some of the physical dirt off in a way that might allow him to cleanse himself enough to think. He didn't know what to do about any of this, and he needed to _think,_ to figure out something, anything he could do to fix this mess and—No.

That was not possible. He must have had a bad reaction to the meal, since it was by far not one of his mother's best, and that was all it was because he was not seeing that in front of him. There was not a manila folder sitting in the middle of his bed mocking him.

He was imagining the whole thing because he had food poisoning.

Only trouble with that theory was that he felt _fine._ He wasn't even a little nauseous or dizzy, like he might be on the edge of a panic attack—which he felt he had every right to—he was calm. Ridiculously so. Like a part of him had expected it.

He hadn't, not on any conscious level, not even with what Nancy had said about the mind games and needing him to doubt that woman had ever been there. Maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise. He should have been prepared for another taunt, another threat—for this.

He took a step forward, enough to see the folder better, and when he did, he could tell that pages were pulled out, left just above the edge of the envelope. Words visible there to make it a mockery.

_Franklin, as I told you before, this is all for you. You are my heir, and this is the legacy I have left behind for you._

Frank backed up, moving away from the note and the voice now echoing in his head, not stopping until he bumped into his shelf. Hitting it, he turned and yanked it down, letting it splinter and bounce as it impacted the floor.

Then he sat down and buried his head in his hands.

* * *

Joe took the stairs two at a time, rushing toward the sound that had rattled the house. She didn't think that any sort of lectures to Joe about not pushing it after he got stabbed would have mattered, not with that crash, so Nancy couldn't stop him from running up, not that she was stopping herself. She caught sight of Laura in her doorway, frowning, but she followed after Joe, needing to know herself what had caused that sound and just how hurt Frank might have been in the process.

Frank had been through so much lately, and she didn't know that she wanted to find him like he had been earlier. She didn't know if this was somehow a misguided attempt to make up for what she couldn't do for Ned, what he didn't want her to do—if it was, it was a poor choice, since Frank wouldn't want it any more than Ned did. He pushed Joe away, and she was not even close to Joe's league when it came to helping Frank.

“Frank?” Joe asked as he pushed the door open and hit something in its path. “Frank!”

“Joe,” Nancy said with a wince as he forced his way through the gap in the door and jumped over a fallen shelf. She eased herself in, having the feeling that if it was difficult for her, Joe had almost certainly pulled his stitches just now. “You idiot.”

He ignored her as he went close to Frank. “Hey, big brother. Look at me. What happened? Tell me what did this? I mean, the who seems a little obvious, but you wouldn't do it without a reason, so... what happened?”

Nancy swallowed, seeing a folder on the bed. On his bed. The mocking use of a place like that, one that conjured up images of intimacy or safety, was so calculated, so cold, that Nancy didn't believe it was any kind of accident. No, that choice had been made deliberately, meant to ruin those images for Frank, to unbalance him, and it had worked.

“She was here.”

Joe looked over at her. “She—who? What are you talking about?”

“Don't know that it was her,” Frank muttered into his hands. “Could have been anyone.”

Nancy nodded, aware that it might not have been that same woman who'd been at the door who had infiltrated his room and left the papers in the middle of his bed. “Maybe it was someone else, but it doesn't change what got left behind.”

Frank managed to nod, but he didn't look up. Joe did. “What got left behind?”

“The papers. The ones she said were for his inheritance,” Nancy answered, curiosity getting the better of her. She wanted to see what was on those pages, wanted to read every word, as wrong as that was. Frank wouldn't, she had a feeling, and she knew it wouldn't actually help anyone if she did—none of Zollner's holdings were legal, so he couldn't have willed them to anyone. And Frank knowing just what sort of legacy he'd been left would only upset him further.

“So you trashed your room?” Joe asked. “Come on, finding out you're super rich should be a reason to celebrate, not destroy.”

“Don't be an idiot,” Frank told him with a shudder. Then he added, “the bastard left me a note.”

Nancy decided to hell with it and went for the papers, reaching them half a second before Joe did. She snatched them up and started reading.

_Franklin, as I told you before, this is all for you. You are my heir, and this is the legacy I have left behind for you. I always intended to hand this to you personally, to give you all that you deserve as the heir I have chosen, since it is only right it pass directly from me to you. You are everything I have worked toward, everything that I have built, and even more so the work of my hands than any of the rest of this. You are the future, as I told you, and I have never lost faith in what you will become. You may feel that you are not yet ready for this, for all I am giving you, but you will find yourself there in time. I have not given up on you, nor do I doubt that you will become exactly what I intend for you to be._

_You are mine, as I said before, and you always will be._


	6. Troublesome Thoughts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank, Joe, and Nancy react to the note in his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The possibility had to be explored, at least a little.

* * *

Getting off the floor had required effort Frank wasn't sure he had in him, but somehow he'd gotten out of that hole he'd created for himself and up, off into the other room. He needed space, needed a way to get free of everything clinging to him. That room was too small, the ideas in his head too overwhelming. He couldn't think in there, and he was starting to feel like he couldn't breathe. His personal space had been violated, his sanctuary entered and desecrated, those papers left to mock him. The note was the worst, but even without it, Frank would have been unsettled.

He had been before he went to his room.

He leaned over the sink, trying to decide if he was going to lose his stomach. He had not felt sick before he went upstairs, not even when he saw the envelope, but the words and memories could get him there. He could easily lose that lousy dinner and a lot more.

_“You are mine.”_

_Frank gagged, not sure if he was sick because he'd just been drugged again or if it was just the words, the cloying sound of them that hung in the air and made him want to vomit. Zollner and his obsession would make anyone want to puke, since Zollner was twisted as hell. He kept saying that Frank belonged to him, and each time he did, Frank felt worse._

_Those words, those damned words... Frank wasn't the type of person who believed anyone was property. Maybe a few times over the years he'd thought about Callie as his “girl,” but he had never assumed that she belonged to him in the same sense that Zollner used. Callie was his because she'd chosen to be with him, she'd offered that, and to this day it was something that Frank knew that he didn't deserve, but he'd never lost sight of what it was. He'd never thought she wasn't her own person, not even when she'd been brainwashed._

_Zollner, though, he saw Frank like some kind of... toy. Frank was this thing he intended to take apart and then reassemble, fitting the pieces back together in the order that he wanted them to be, and even if he never rebuilt it, never got it taken apart, he still believed the toy was his._

_“I am not yours. You may as well let me go now,” Frank told him. He knew reasoning didn't do any good. Zollner was well beyond reason. The man had lost that a long time ago, and Frank knew it. He knew he couldn't argue with a man as deluded as Zollner was, but what else could he do? He couldn't fight. He had already lost that battle, had back before he was taken. Zollner had him at a physical disadvantage, and he kept him there. Unless Frank could clear his system of the drugs, he would not be able to make any kind of stand, and that left him with only one weapon, one way to fight._

_His voice._

_Maybe his brain, but where that was anymore, Frank didn't know. He wasn't all that good at thinking between the pain and the drugs._

_“Mine,” Zollner repeated, tracing along Frank's scar with a smug smile on his face. Frank squirmed, and that was apparently what Zollner wanted because the smirk grew wider, enjoying his discomfort. “I have left my mark on you in many ways, and I have yet to decide which of them is my favorite, though this one is a strong possibility. Or perhaps—”_

_“Don't,” Frank said, jerking away from the touch. He knew that was one of Zollner's favorites, but he hated that, could barely control himself when threatened by it. “Don't touch me again.”_

_“You amuse me, Franklin, in thinking that you have any say in whether or not that happens. You seem to have some difficulty accepting what you are—or is it the word_ mine _that you don't understand?I can make it very clear to you. In fact, I think I will enjoy doing so.”_

Gagging, Frank almost threw up in the sink. He turned away, going for the shower. He pushed open the door and turned on the faucet. He yanked off his shirt and shed his pants, needing to get himself free and clean again. He felt like Zollner had just been there, and he never wanted to feel like that again. Ever.

* * *

“Any longer in that shower and he is either going to freeze or burn his skin off if the water's still hot,” Joe said, eying the bathroom door again. Frank had practically barricaded himself inside there after Joe and Nancy went for the note, and Joe got the feeling he wasn't planning on coming out of there anytime soon.

“Considering what this letter says, I can't say as I blame him,” Nancy said, putting the paper down and shaking her head. “Zollner was obsessed with your brother, we all knew that, but I don't know that any of us knew just how insidious that obsession was. We thought we did, but if that is any indication of the sort of thing he was saying to Frank when he had him—”

“That has got to be _tame_ compared to what he said when Frank was actually in his hands,” Joe said, feeling disgusted. “I don't know—Frank let me make jokes about it even though they were in really bad taste and he just shrugged it off, but that last line, that possessiveness—that's not just some sicko who claims Frank is an heir. That's... It's worse, somehow, like...”

“Don't go borrowing trouble,” Nancy advised, touching Joe's arm. “The note was written in a way to do as much damage as possible. It's words, words that a dead man can't back up, but that doesn't mean they can't do harm—they already have. They were meant to pick at all the old wounds and make them bleed again. They're meant to make Frank doubt himself. Meant to make everything he experienced take on a darkness it might not have had but would be devastating even in implication alone. Frank's got holes in his memories. If he starts to doubt or wonder if there was more that he can't remember, if he thinks somehow that happened when he was—”

“Don't. Please just stop. This is—This is just so... wrong,” Joe muttered, running a hand through his hair. “First Gertrude, now this—Zollner is dead. This shouldn't be happening. I know the guy was a planner and everything, but this doesn't feel like planning. This feels like that bastard is still out there.”

“Which is what they—whether its Zollner or someone acting on his orders—want us to think. It doesn't matter if it's real or not. They want us to think that Zollner is still alive, still manipulating us—manipulating Frank.”

Joe looked at the door again. “I'm starting to think I have to go in there and get him.”

Nancy grimaced. “I think that is my cue to leave.”

“Nancy—”

“Your brother's privacy has been invaded enough already, and if you have to go in there and drag him out, it'll only be worse, so I'll just... see if your mother minds me staying over for the night and if I can borrow a blanket and a pillow—”

“She'll have made the guest room up for you by now,” Frank said, and Joe looked over at him, trying to hold back the reaction he knew would make his brother self-conscious and then angry and defensive. It was hard not to look at Frank's scars, hard not to stare at them, since so many of them were the work of one man, that same man who shadowed over them now, even in death. Frank hid them most of the time, not liking the reminders, and Joe knew that he didn't help matters by his fascination with them, but he couldn't look away, not easily, not when seeing the signs of his brother's torture made him angry all over again.

Nancy seemed to be as focused on those scars as Joe was, her eyes not meeting Frank's. “I'm sure you're right. I just—it's more than I deserve and since your room is a bit of a mess—”

“I don't need the guest room.”

“Um, yes, you do because we haven't done any kind of forensics on that break-in, and I know you might think it's not necessary because you don't sleep, but you are _not_ sleeping in a room that they've violated like that. It's not happening.”

Frank rubbed his fingers over one of the worst marks he had, a deep gouge that looked like someone had carved a Z into his chest. He did that more often than he realized, though most of the time, the mark was covered when he did. “I have slept in worse places, and my forensics won't change anything—they're already all over the room.”

“And you don't plan on sleeping,” Joe added, daring his brother to tell him he was wrong.

“It's likely I won't,” Frank conceded. “Either way, Nancy can have the guest room.”

* * *

“I am surprised that Joe let you get away with the not sleeping idea.”

Frank's lips curved into a slight smile, one that made Nancy nervous as she sat down across from him, back in their same positions from earlier, from before that doorbell ringing that ruined almost everything. She wasn't sure just how connected it was to what happened with Gertrude. The timing was almost perfect, too good to be a coincidence, but if Gertrude had been programmed, she was essentially a ticking time bomb. She could have gone off at any time. Maybe they were prepared for that, maybe they knew Joe had triggered her, and that was why that woman approached Frank, but that meant that people were still watching, waiting, surveilling them. And none of the Hardys had seen it.  
That was almost as unsettling as Frank's smile a second ago had been, though it should be more than that, so much more.

“Something wrong, Drew?”

Nancy should have known he'd see it right away. “Your look just then was a little scary, Hardy.”

Frank smirked, seeming to enjoy that. “I just helped Joe with his prescription, that's all. We both know he was never going to admit that he got stabbed or that it hurt or that he should be resting himself. And before you say anything, he's done it to me more than I care to admit since this thing with Zollner started.”

She shouldn't find that funny, but she laughed anyway. “You two...”

“Have a screwed up relationship,” Frank said. “I know. Zollner said it was part of the reason why I was perfect for this, but I still don't—every time I try and make sense of this, I come back to the same thing—and I can't. I can't make sense of it because it _does not make sense._ There is absolutely no logical reason why someone looking to break me or control me would not go after Joe.”

Nancy swallowed. “I admit, I can't find a good explanation for that, either. Joe is the logical choice, the _perfect_ one for that, and yet Zollner never touched him. Maybe he thought it would be worse for you in the long run if you were constantly wondering about Joe—if he'd been programmed, why he hadn't been, and if he was going to snap. It all preys on your fears and gives you no satisfaction, no way of being safe or sure it was over, not ever.”

Frank sighed. “I suppose that could be it. Still, it doesn't seem that effective. He tried to fake Joe's death to get to me—why not use him in another way? Why not take the best path there? What am I missing that explains this?”

“That is something only Zollner knows.”

“Zollner is supposed to be dead.”

Nancy drew in a breath, wondering when that subject would be broached—really broached—by anyone in this house. Laura had spoken of it, so had Joe, but both of them did it in a way that insisted that Zollner being dead was the only option. Nancy had gone along with that, but the truth was, without bodies, without proof, they couldn't be sure, and no one had dug through that wreckage to find them. The building was still caught up in a bunch of red tape, since Zollner hadn't acquired it legally and it was a crime scene, so it wasn't like anyone was going to clean up the site for rebuilding or the feds had much interest in sorting through anything. Everyone was willing to accept that Zollner and Vallin died when the building came down. They wanted it to be true.

So did she. So did Frank.

She didn't know that he did, though. He would have the hardest time of anyone being certain that Zollner was dead.

“You have your doubts, don't you?”

Nancy grimaced. “You and I saw the cave-in. We shouldn't have survived it. So we should know, since we were there. We saw that. I was unconscious, but we saw it. We saw the aftermath. We should be sure.”

“I get the feeling neither of us is.”

She twisted her hands together. “I want to tell you that I am. I want to reassure all of us that he's gone for good. I can't. None of us can promise that because we can't prove it, and even if we had a body, it wouldn't be enough. Because whether he's alive or not, he has a hold on us. A note he could have written over a year ago, one he set in motion long before he ever took you—the first time, even. These steps he took, the things that are still out there, waiting for us to spring their traps or activate their triggers, they could have been set up so long ago, but they'll still hit us like they're new and fresh because we haven't stumbled onto them yet.”

Frank nodded. “One thing Zollner was an expert at—confusing the issue. His goals, his plans... He sounded like he had them all set in stone, but they were never clear, not even when I was in the middle of them. He would have all of it set to go at different times, and he enjoyed that game while he was in prison so much that I could see him now, playing up the 'dead' angle until he's done all he can with it. And then, when he's done with that, he'll come after what's left of me.”

Nancy looked down at her hands and back up at him. “Do you think this is... just another phase of his plan?”

Frank shook his head, voice full of something she just might call despair. “Honestly, I don't know.”


	7. Plans and More Doubts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morning comes, and it is time to make some kind of plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had started this days ago, but work kept me from making much progress. I was just too tired. So while I know I have other updates due, I went back to this first since it was started. It still took me all day to get it done, but I suppose a late update is better than no update.

* * *

Joe woke to a sharp stab in his side, for a moment looking around to see who had stabbed him this time until he realized he was in his own bed. Alone. Grimacing, he forced himself up, needing to get a look at his side. If it was infected, Frank and his mother would freak. Joe didn't want to deal with the hospital again or even just their family doctor. He wasn't going to do that again. It was just a cut, not that deep, and he was fine. He still didn't know how to feel about his aunt doing it to him, but he was going to be fine. The cut would heal and be forgotten, just like so many others. He didn't even think it would be close to the scars he'd gotten before—and not at all like the ones Frank carried from Zollner or even Callie.

Joe winced. He had a few lingering marks from her as well, though they'd mostly faded and he would rather let them go.

He walked over to his dresser, pulled out a shirt, and yanked it over his head. He should have found a looser one, since this one would probably rub against the bandage, but he knew he'd live. He yawned as he descended the stairs, one thought on his mind: the refrigerator. His stomach was rumbling, and he needed to fill it.

He stopped in the doorway to the kitchen. He did not know why he'd thought breakfast would be ready. His mother wasn't up yet. His aunt might have had something waiting for them, but his aunt wasn't here. She was in jail.

That kind of ruined any thought of breakfast. He turned toward the living room, wanting to sit down and take some time just to come to grips with that, something he knew none of them had done yesterday. He hadn't wanted to, and then they were all distracted by the terrible dinner and then the envelope on Frank's bed. Now, Joe wasn't sure what he felt or what he thought about anything.

“Oh, now that's cute,” he said. His voice was too loud, and he instantly roused both the sleeping parties on the couch, but at least his mouth was sure enough of an opinion to say it. “Or it was.”

Nancy reached up to rub her head, having bumped it on Frank's when Joe woke her up. They'd fallen asleep sitting next to each other, heads resting against the others, and it would have been the kind of moment that needed to be photographed and oh'ed over by his mother, who had always adored those moments between any of the three of them when they were younger. She still did it with him and Frank even though they were fully grown, and she would have wanted to catch one with the other two since Nancy was hardly ever here for them to happen.

“Joe? What are you doing?”

“I'd think you were drinking with the way you sound now,” he observed, and Nancy glared at him, looking like she wanted to flip him off. “You sound like you've got a bit of a hangover, in which case I'm hurt. You didn't share.”

“The only thing we shared was a couple of nightmares,” Frank muttered, putting a hand on his neck, rolling it to make the kinks go away. “We were talking about... Zollner. I didn't think either of us was going to sleep after that conversation. Still not sure how it happened.”

“I'm going to bet that your fatigue just got up with you. As it did with me,” Nancy said, yawning. “Or maybe a bit of adrenaline and panic mixed with upset... It all combined to make it so that you finally crashed and let yourself get some sleep, which you badly needed.”

Frank shook his head. “Not likely. I am still not sure when we ended up sitting next to each other. I'm pretty sure I had the other chair.”

Nancy flushed, and Joe figured it had something to do with her. Maybe the conversation had shifted from Zollner to what actually went down between her and Ned. Maybe it was uglier than she'd said before, but she might not have opened up about it—unless she wanted to distract Frank, which was definitely possible.

“There wasn't breakfast,” Joe said into the now awkward silence. “It threw me off.”

“Right,” Frank said. “No Gertrude.”

* * *

Nancy left the brothers alone, needing some space and a moment to breathe. The atmosphere within the Hardy home was tense, and she felt out of place. She shouldn't be in the middle of it, and she knew that. She hadn't planned on it, but she was here, and she had to fix it somehow. She'd tried helping Frank last night, but she didn't think their conversation had helped anyone. Frank couldn't prove to himself—or anyone—that Zollner was dead, could not have the assurance that he needed, and that was what they were all needing now.

This thing with Gertrude, her programming coming active now, it cast doubt on everything all over again. It was like the game Zollner had played before, the one he'd orchestrated from prison. This time, he could be doing it from the grave. That would be what he wanted everyone to think, even if he was dead. He wanted them believing that they could not ever be free of him.

Nancy looked at the shower, thinking back to how long Frank had spent in there the night before. Truth was, they weren't free. Not her, not Frank, not Callie, not Joe, not Ned, not Gertrude. Not even the ones less directly affected were free. They all carried the memories and the fears, the doubts and the scars. They were all going to have these things with them for the rest of their lives.

She went to the sink, splashing water on her face. She wanted to be the one who had the solution. She was on the outside. It should be easier for her. She could find some way of helping Frank and Joe, but she didn't have it. She couldn't even see a way past her own failure with Ned.

She dried off her face and headed back downstairs. This time, she smelled coffee, and she wasn't sure if Laura was awake now or not, but Nancy could use some coffee herself. She needed to wake up, to think, to make some kind of plan. She couldn't go home—that would be like abandoning Frank and Joe, but she might be in the way as well.

“That smells good,” Nancy said as she entered the kitchen. “I hope there's enough for me.”

“If you can convince Joe to share it,” Frank said, and she smiled at him, glad he'd been the one to make the coffee. Frank's was usually a lot better than Joe's, since the younger Hardy tended to make it whichever haphazard way he felt like at the time, making it an adventure of either super strong or nothing but grounds or even something more water than coffee.

“I think that might be a little _too_ easy,” Nancy teased. She smiled at Joe, who frowned at her, but then she had an advantage—she was female, and Joe couldn't resist a pretty girl. She reached around him for a cup, and Frank brought the pot to her, filling the mug. “See?”

Joe wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I think I should hate you.”

“Let's save that for later,” Nancy suggested. She sipped from her coffee and then continued, “we have to start doing more than reacting. We've been put on the defensive. We're reeling from the blows that were struck, both metaphorical and real. We need to find a way to fight back.”

“Oh, I like that idea,” Joe said. “I like it a lot.”

“Except when you consider that the person you'd be fighting back against is our _aunt_ who had no idea what she was doing,” Frank countered. He shook his head. “We can't fight her. She didn't—she's more or less innocent. She may later remember attacking you, but if we were able to talk to her now and she was lucid, she would have no memory of it, no explanation for it. She'd think we were all crazy even knowing what she does about Zollner.”

“I didn't mean we would fight Gertrude.”

“And Zollner is supposed to be dead. Vallin, too,” Frank added. “There's no one to fight. No one but ourselves. And having fought that one for over a year now, I have to say, I'm sick of that one. It's a losing battle.”

“I'm not saying we need to fight them or ourselves,” Nancy said, noting how Frank had not entirely covered over the fact that he wasn't sure about Zollner's death. He was too honest to try and lie and say he believed it, but he knew what he had to do for Joe's sake—for his family's sake—in pretending he did. “But the woman who brought those papers to Frank, the one who is likely behind the break-in, she can be found. She can be caught.”

“And when we learn she knows nothing about Zollner or any of this, that she's just another pawn?” Frank asked, arms folded over his chest again. “It's not going to help. Or change anything.”

“Except... if this is the game that Zollner has started, the one he wants to play—and I'm not saying he's alive to do it, just that he's already set it in motion—then the best way of ending it is—”

“Refusing to play?” Joe asked. “Because I kind of like that idea. He doesn't need to screw with us again. Ever.”

“Only he can without even trying,” Frank said, his hand on the place where the Z shaped scar hid under his shirt.

“Which is why we need to pursue every lead we have to make sure we can stop it for good this time. If Zollner did manage to set up an inheritance for Frank, then we need to know how. We need to find out where he managed to hide those assets and maybe use them to find the last remnants of his organization, and when those are gone—”

“So is Zollner,” Joe finished. “For good this time.”

“Exactly.”

Joe grinned. “I like the sound of that. Where do we start?”

* * *

“Come on, Frank. You saw her. You can do better than that with a description. I know you can,” Joe said, and Frank leaned back against the wall, glaring at his brother. He hadn't wanted to do this from the start, not when trying to talk about his uninvited guest yesterday was dragging up not only the memories from that upsetting encounter but so many others, but all Joe could do was push, push, push. Frank understood why—none of them liked being helpless, and they all needed something after what happened to Gertrude.

That didn't make it less frustrating or even less tempting to hit his brother right in the face.

“Look, I have given you a description. I've actually given you _ten,_ but you don't seem willing to let me use any of them. What am I supposed to do? You know me. I am not an artist. I can't draw her myself. I didn't think far enough ahead yesterday to where I grabbed my phone and took a picture of her to use against facial recognition,” Frank said, almost losing control of his temper. “I have no idea who she is. I have never seen her before. All I remember is the damned hair, and I'm sorry I wasn't more help than that, but she blindsided the hell out of me. I admit that. I didn't notice much past her words about my inheritance. I was seeing Zollner by then, not her.”

Joe looked like he was about to hit the wall himself. “I don't—I just want to find this woman. I want to find her and make her pay for doing this to you.”

“And if she had no idea what she was doing just like Aunt Gertrude?” Frank asked. He shook his head. “Maybe somewhere out there is a woman staring at the mirror and trying to understand why her hair is such a funky color when it wasn't yesterday, but she's not going to have any answers for us.”

“We don't know that,” Nancy said, still calmer than both of them. “And while finding her is the logical step, I don't know that we're going to do it like this. Let Frank have some time to recall more details. Or leave him alone to play with his programs later. The familiarity of his computer and technology might help relax more details from him. In the meantime, there is the actual will to consider. None of us did much more than read Zollner's note, which is more of a mind game than anything, but there could be forensics on it as well as whatever we can gain from the actual legal papers. The law firm, the notary, any of that. Those are still leads that we can use.”

“You have a point,” Joe said, shaking his head in frustration. “Still, it's easier to fight a woman—a person—than it is a piece of paper.”

Frank snorted, and Joe flipped him off, just making Frank laugh. He didn't know that he was all that capable of fighting either option, which made him more or less pathetic, but he'd like to take a break from trying to identify the strange blonde and go with something more substantial, something that wasn't from such a questionable source—his mind.

“I'll go get the papers,” Joe said, and before they could stop him, he was running up the stairs. Fine with Frank. He wasn't going to go after them, and he could use the space from his brother for as long as it would last.

“It's possible that she'll be an employee of the law firm. That might be all we need to find her,” Nancy said, and Frank looked over at her. She gave him a slight smile. “Though I am not sure that's as much of a relief to you as it should be.”

Frank shook his head. “I don't know. The papers came back, which means she wasn't a figment of my imagination, but at the same time... I'm not sure...”

“You doubt yourself because you weren't able to give Joe the description,” Nancy finished for him. “You're still not sure she's real.”

“Stupid, isn't it? If the papers are real—”

“—and I heard the doorbell—”

“Then she should be real, right?” Frank asked, rubbing his forehead. “I don't understand, though. She's not clear. Not at all, and it's not like she shouldn't be. I saw her before she said she wanted me, that it was about my inheritance. I thought she must be a potential client. I don't—how can that moment be gone when I have so many others that won't leave? And if she's—she spoke like she'd seen Zollner in person, which does make her more valuable than the papers, Joe is right about that, but I can't think about her without wanting to puke because I hear _him._ I hate this so much...”

Nancy put a hand on his arm. “I know. And so does Joe. You're not alone in this. Even if you have doubts, if you think you can't trust your memories—trust Joe. Trust us.”

“And if... if none of you are real?”


	8. Legal Troubles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank, Joe, and Nancy pursue leads with the notary and the law firm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so far behind right now. I am trying to get to everything, but it's been very hard to write and very hard to make sure I get everything else done, and I'm sorry for what I'm forgetting and missing and leaving undone.

* * *

“Explain to me again why we're at the notary's office instead of the law firm?” Joe asked, yawning. He should have denied Nancy the coffee and gotten more of it for himself, since he was having trouble staying awake now. He didn't know why he was this tired, since he had gotten plenty of sleep last night—more than Nancy or Frank, but neither of them were yawning. Frank should be dragging, the one more exhausted than anyone else because he never slept, but while he was quiet, it wasn't because he was tired. He was almost lost in his head again, as usual, but he wasn't out of it because he couldn't stay awake.

Joe decided they were stopping for coffee after this. He needed it, and Frank might need a break, since he still wasn't up to the usual intensity of their investigations right now. He still wasn't sure why they'd allowed him to do the driving—sure, Joe had been busy yawning when Frank took the keys, but he wasn't usually behind the wheel these days, not since Zollner abducted him—not even since the first time he'd been taken. Come to think of it, Frank hadn't done much of any driving in over a year.

“Because this notary doesn't work for the law firm and is an office of one,” Nancy explained, shifting the papers around in her hands. They'd made copies of the ones left in Frank's room and given the originals over to Con and the others at the police department, and hopefully they'd get something from the forensics, though Frank was probably right with his comment about not holding their breaths for it. “We can eliminate the woman as coming from the notary office much easier than we can someone at a large law firm. They're not likely to give us the names of their employees, and we don't have a picture to use, either. We need more than an inconsistent description and a few papers.”

Joe saw Frank wince, but he didn't say anything about Nancy's comment. Joe shouldn't have pushed so hard about the description, and he didn't even know that it was that, but Frank hadn't been willing or able to create an image of the woman who'd been at the door with the program they had for it, and he'd refused to try with the department's artist.

“Do we actually think that we'll get something from this notary?”

Frank shook his head. “It's impossible to know. I find it strange that the firm didn't use one of its own notaries for documents, so that in of itself has me concerned. It may be nothing. Maybe they were unavailable. Maybe it was a conflict of interest. Maybe it's something I'm not even thinking of, but it could be innocent. It would be like Zollner to make something like this happen, this small detail that's out of place, just so we chase our tails in circles for a while.”

Joe leaned his head to the side. “Hmm. I'm not sure what kind of dog you'd be if you were a dog... Great Dane because they're so noble and regal looking? What's the smartest dog? I know what's the most annoying dog, so I'd almost call you that, but maybe you're like a sled dog or a sheep herding dog or something more like a—”

“I know I've felt like I was herding you places before, but I wouldn't call you a sheep,” Frank said, and Joe almost grinned before his brother added, “you're more like a cat when it comes to being herded, especially away from a pretty girl.”

“I resent that.”

Nancy laughed. “I think he's right, though. It's a strange part of your charm.”

“No fair. You two aren't allowed to gang up on me,” Joe protested. He looked at Frank. “Come on. Where's the love? You're my brother. Bros before—”

“I would not finish that sentence if you intend to live,” Frank cautioned. “Nancy's willing to forgive a lot of your faults, but that's asking a lot.”

“Yeah, but you're the one that's driving. She's in the back seat. I'm safe.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

* * *

“Nathaniel Rosoff?”

The older man looked up from his desk, frowning at the sight of the three of them before removing his glasses and rubbing them on his shirt. He blew on them and repeated the process. Nancy nudged Joe, who seemed either about to fidget or bolt, impatient as he was, which was at odds with the lingering effects of his medication. He should have slept that off by now, but his yawns and the way he lagged behind them said otherwise.

She figured it was for the best. Joe had just gotten stabbed yesterday. He didn't need to be pushing himself, even if there was no way he'd stay at home for any of their tasks. He had to be there when the evidence was handed over and for all the interviews. That was more something she'd expect from Frank, since he was the one with all the doubts, but he'd managed to stay calm and mostly together despite them.

“Can I help you?”

“I'm Joe Hardy. This is my brother, Frank. Our friend Nancy Drew. We came to see you because of this document you notarized,” Joe said, waving to Nancy so she'd give him the papers. She barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes at him. She wasn't a servant, and she wasn't just there to keep his papers.

Still, she passed them over, letting him put them in Rosoff's hands. He rubbed at his temple as he read them over, shaking his head. She swallowed, not sure what his hesitation meant. Did he not recognize them? If Rosoff hadn't seen them before, then the documents were fake, just something some follower of Zollner had made to screw with Frank. It might go no further than this, leaving them with another dead end but less of a threat at the same time.

“Everything seems to be in order,” Rosoff said. “Exactly what did you need to know?”

Frank folded his arms over his chest, studying the other man with concern. “Then you recognize these papers? You notarized them?”

Rosoff shrugged. “That's my seal, isn't it?”

“It's your name by the notary seal,” Frank agreed, swallowing as he finished speaking. “That doesn't mean that you actually signed those papers or that they're truly legally binding. Not unless you say, here and now, that you did not sign them. Which is it? Are they legal or did someone use your seal to forge them?”

Rosoff put his finger against the page, tracing each word as he read it over. Frank frowned. Joe shook his head, irritated. He leaned over the desk, pushing the papers down from Rosoff's hands.

“It's not that difficult a question. Did you notarize this or not?”

Rosoff snorted. “Son, I read and notarize hundreds of legal papers in any given week. You expect me to know any of them without reading them over again? Unless there was an extremely unusual bequest or some kind of mistake in the language of the document, they wouldn't stand out to me. Does this have anything unusual as a bequest?”

“Other than the fact that the man leaving this to me was a psychotic brainwashed criminal who also brainwashed other people, no,” Frank muttered, sarcasm getting the better of him. “It's a perfectly normal will, leaving everything my stalker illegally gained to me in the event of his death—if he is, in fact, dead.”

Rosoff gave Frank a look before grunting and looking back at the papers. “Seems real to me. I don't remember the specifics. Don't remember not signing it, either. Everything looks right—This Zollner was in sound mind and left everything to his chosen heir, Franklin Hardy. There are instructions here that detail some assets for direct transfer as well as an indication that he has more instructions for you to follow to receive your inheritance in full. Usually those would be with this document, but it lacks a codicil. I'd see the lawyer who made this document first. They would have those instructions for you, the rest of what you need. Not me.”

Frank shook his head, turning away from Rosoff as he battled for control. Joe looked at his brother, fists balled up in anger before he turned to the notary. “You have got to be kidding. Who just... authorizes a document like this?”

“Any number of a hundred people,” Rosoff said, defensive. “There is absolutely no indication that there is anything amiss with this will. It's done in sound mind, done with the appropriate number of witnesses, all in the acceptable legal format for such a document. I have no way of knowing that this man was a criminal, as you claim, and if he was, that is a matter for the courts to decide, not me.”

Frank leaned against the wall, and Nancy went to his side, getting the feeling that he was very close to being sick or even collapsing. She propped herself under him and he sagged onto her. “I would really like to wake up from this nightmare now.”

“Frank,” she began, at a complete loss now, since how did she tell him that he couldn't? The nightmare wasn't over, and it might not be for a long time. “Zollner would have wanted the documents to seem real, as real as they could. It's just another level of the game he's playing with you.”

“He's dead,” Joe reminded them, pushing in between them and taking her place next to his brother. “Come on. Let's get out of here. We all need some air. And a lot of other things, but we'll start with air.”

* * *

“Are you sure about this?”

Frank shook his head. Sure wasn't a word he'd apply to anything in his life, not now, but his brother was asking too much of him now. He didn't know how he felt or how he was, not after those papers and the notary. Legal. According to them, what Zollner had done was legal, and while Joe persisted in believing that Zollner was actually dead, Frank wasn't sure that he was. All of this seemed too calculated to be all set in advance by a dead man. Yes, Zollner was a planner, the sort that was two or three steps ahead if not more, but Frank didn't feel like it was being done without a live puppet master. He felt like Zollner was still out there, still watching him.

“Joe, we don't have much choice. The longer we wait to find this woman, the more time goes by with her free to do more of Zollner's will or to be killed off so that we can't get anything from her—”

“Assuming that she knows anything and wasn't completely brainwashed—”

“—So we have to go now, as soon as possible,” Nancy finished. “I don't want to push anyone right now, but we have to do as much as we can before the trail gets cold completely.”

“Frank—”

“You could suggest leaving me behind to handle the next part, but that is not really an option, since I am the only one who saw her,” Frank said. “I don't know that I want to do this, but I agree with Nancy. We need to do it before more time passes. Maybe... It could be that activating Aunt Gertrude's programming was meant as a diversion, a means to keep us from... from pursuing this. Maybe it all is. Zollner wasn't all about games—he was about misdirection and covering his tracks, hiding behind layers on layers, and even what we thought was his endgame doesn't make sense. If his organization is half of what we believe it was, if he did set this up before the cave in... he'd be protecting his plan and assets by having us looking in the wrong direction or chasing our tails. Something. Anything.”

“So then why bother going to the law office?” Joe demanded, shaking his head as he pointed up to the building. “If all of this is just a misdirect, why waste our time on it?”

“We're here?” Frank suggested, and Joe almost hit him. He dodged it, taking the final steps up to the doors. He didn't want to do this, he wouldn't deny that, but he knew that they had to try. If the woman he'd seen yesterday was here at the law firm, then they had to know.

He made his way toward the elevators, not bothering to try and check in with anyone on the ground floor. He didn't feel like being ushered out without a real chance of seeing someone in the office. Maybe he should have tried for an appointment, but he hadn't wanted to call in advance and risk someone setting something up or warning off the woman they needed to find.

Joe caught the elevator just before the doors closed, letting himself and Nancy in. She gave Frank a worried look, but it was half-directed at Joe. Frank had managed to forget that his brother got stabbed, which should have been impossible, but Frank was easily lost these days.

“You have a plan?”

Frank pushed the button for the top floor. “Going to someone with authority and making a demand or two is as far as I've gotten.”

Joe grimaced. “That's not like you. You're a planner, too. Or at least a thinker.”

“Thinking went out the window when Zollner took me,” Frank reminded him. “I haven't been at my best in years, and let's not start on the whole 'none of this might be real' thing that still nags at me.”

“This is a bad plan, for the record.”

“Calling in advance would have been worse in most ways,” Frank told him, stepping out of the elevator as soon as it dinged. Joe shook his head, hand on his side as he jogged over to the receptionist's desk to charm her.

Nancy put a hand on Frank's arm. “We have been too focused on you. It's Joe that needs a break and should have stayed back.”

“This shouldn't take all that long,” Frank told her, following Joe over to the desk. “We'll make sure that Joe gets some rest after this, and I'm hoping we won't be here too long. We just have to ask about a woman with platinum hair—it was almost white, and that has to be distinctive, something that would get her noticed—Wait. That's her. That picture on the wall, second from the left. That's her.”

Joe stopped mid-flirt to look back at him. “You're sure? That's the woman we need to see?”

Frank nodded. “The hair was pretty distinctive, but the rest of it fits, too. That's the woman who was at the house yesterday.”

The receptionist frowned, her eyes darting back to the photograph. “You have to be mistaken. That's not possible. Madeline died two years ago.”


	9. Lawyers and Legal Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frank, Joe, and Nancy continue their investigation at the law office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it has been a long time, and it was not an easy time, nor was this easy to write. I haven't been able to get much written lately, even with the fact that the revelation in this chapter was planned back when I posted the last chapter.

* * *

“I think you should have a seat,” the lawyer said, gesturing to one of the two chairs on the other side of his desk. Frank gave it a glance, and Nancy shook her head, escorting both of the boys over so they were sitting. Joe was pushing his wound too far, and Frank just kept getting hit by one emotional blow after another, and neither of them seemed aware of any of their limits. She wasn't one to talk, since she had issues with boundaries and knowing when to stop herself, but she knew that she might have just the slightest bit of an advantage, having a minute amount more distance than they did from the situation. That left her as the one who had to help.

Too bad she was bad at that, as her record with Ned clearly showed.

“This... Madeline,” Joe said, darting a glance toward his brother, even as he struggled a little to breathe—just in pain, she actually hoped, since she didn't want it to be a sign of anything worse. If that knife wound was more than they'd thought, if the doctors missed something, if he'd left the hospital too soon—Nancy didn't want to think about all of those possibilities. “She used to work for you?”

“Yes. She was a very bright young woman, up and coming. Everyone liked to joke about how she'd be the next partner,” the other man said, smiling with fondness at the memory. Nancy grimaced. She wanted to like him. He reminded her of her father. Trouble was, she didn't know that they could trust any of what this man Newell was saying.

“But she died,” Frank said, though she wasn't sure that his voice matched his words. “How?”

“A terrible car accident. She was far from the only one involved—that tragedy took almost forty lives—but the one that mattered to all of us was hers,” Newell told them. “Madeline was a bright spot in all our lives. She was dedicated, but without surrendering her soul to it. She never lost sight of who she was or what mattered.”

Joe smiled. “Sounds like a good person. Wish I could have met her.”

Frank gave his brother a dirty look. “It sounds ridiculous. Why would you, a partner in a prestigious law firm, be so enthusiastic about a woman that wasn't giving body and soul to the firm? To sacrifice everything? Eighty hour workweeks were the minimum anyone would expect from someone trying to get advancement. You're lying, and we're done here.”

Frank forced himself up from the chair, starting toward the door. Joe started to rise, but Nancy waved him off. As much as she knew it was better if Joe helped his brother, she was still worried about him and wanted him to rest. He could finish the conversation with Newell. They seemed to have a rapport.

She hurried after Frank, finding him outside the office. He leaned against the wall, head in his hands, breathing hard. Joe would know this, would know just how to handle his brother in this state, and Nancy was not sure she did. She wanted to do everything that she could, but she didn't know if it was enough.

“Not every law firm demands that their people have no lives,” she told him, and he snorted, but she thought she saw a smile on his lips. “And yes, I know I'm biased. I can't judge everyone based on my dad, but I like to think he's more than just an exception to a rule.”

Frank looked at her. “I think I'd like that, too. I'm just not as... trusting as I used to be—”

“Were you ever all that trusting? Because some people—I'm not naming names—might say you were practical enough to be a cynic. More than that, even. Though it was Joe they'd accuse of rushing to judgment, you were always the more cautious and therefore... less trusting.”

Grimacing, Frank ran a hand over his face. “There's something about having your mind screwed over that takes away any sense of... peace. Even things that should be... innocuous, they aren't. Like him saying that he was glad she wasn't dedicated to her job. It just felt... wrong. Only... everything feels wrong.”

“I know,” she said, touching his shoulder. “And I can't fix that, as much as I want to. As your friend, I wish I had some way of stopping all of this pain, but I can't. And I feel like I can't help with any of it. Which—this is not the time to talk about that. I left Joe in there so that he could... maybe catch more flies with honey—”

“An expression that usually only gets applied to Joe when he's charming a girl.”

“Oh, Joe can schmooze more than just girls,” Nancy said, shaking her head. While Frank had his own special brand of charm, and it was one she happened to like, most people found it easier to befriend and like Joe. He was just one of those people, even if his flirting with everything female could be annoying at times. “I think he can handle that conversation, and I wanted him to stay still. He needs to rest.”

“You noticed that, too.”

She almost laughed. “It was hard to miss. I'm worried about him, too, and with this whole inheritance thing hanging over you none of us have had any time to deal with the fact that your aunt stabbed him.”

“Realistically, there is very little that we can do. Hire a deprogrammer and hope for the best, but... hoping for the best hasn't really worked lately,” Frank said, looking down at his hands. “I... I suppose we'd better go see what Joe has found out, if anything. Can't put it off forever, and the idea was to deal with this because it's something we could pursue. We'd better finish pursuing it.”

“We don't have to. I know we said we had to find this woman before she disappeared, but it does seem like we're a little late for that already.”

Frank laughed bitterly. “Yeah, by about two years.”

Nancy moved her hand to his cheek, waiting until he looked at her. “This woman, whoever she was, must have been chosen... for the purpose of messing with your mind. She was either dressed up to look like a dead woman or picked because she resembled her close enough to pass for her. It was deliberate, meant to—”

“To cause me a mental breakdown and make me question what's left of my sanity? Again?” Frank finished. “It's working.”

* * *

Joe fidgeted in his chair. The wound on his side was starting to bug him, even itching a little. He knew itching was supposed to be a sign that things were healing, but he didn't feel much like he was healing. He was tired, more than he should be, and he knew both Frank and Nancy had noticed, or he wouldn't have been left behind in this chair.

He gave Newell a smile. “So... um... my brother's kind of under a lot of stress right now. The whole seeing a dead woman thing...”

“Understandable,” Newell said. “I admit, if one of us had seen Madeline, we'd be upset. Overjoyed, in some respects, but still upset. I don't think there's a person here who wouldn't love to know that Madeline is alive. We all adored her, despite what your brother thinks.”

Joe grimaced. “Look, it's not that—Frank questions everything and everyone these days. It's... He has to. It's... a very long story, but he has reasons. And issues, I guess you could say. We were actually not just here to track down a woman who gave him papers. We're trying to deal with the papers themselves. We've already spoken to the notary, who said by his opinion they were legal, which led us back here and—”

“I'm sorry. What papers?”

They hadn't mentioned them yet, had they? They were all too wrapped up in this Madeline woman and what she might mean to have discussed the papers that had sent them down this whole twisted path. Joe swallowed, trying to find the right tactic.

“When this Madeline lookalike came to see my brother,” Joe began, “she gave Frank papers that were supposedly dealing with an inheritance.”

Newell blinked. “Well, that is interesting. Madeline, of course, was never a courier, but we do have several that work for the firm. None that look like her, I'm afraid, and I don't recall any cases going into probate, but we can check our records. Perhaps, given that this notary was not directly employed by our firm, these documents are not as legal as the notary made them sound.”

Joe nodded. “That, I think, would actually be a relief to my brother.”

The lawyer smiled. “Well, then, let me see the documents you have. I can, I hope, shed some light on the situation. If it was handled by our firm, I can direct you to the right lawyer, or I can give your brother the peace of mind you say he needs—perhaps the document is not half as legal as that notary thinks. Remember, a notary is not a lawyer. He may have put his seal on the papers, but he did not draft them.”

Joe knew that. He reached into his coat and took out the papers, passing them over to the lawyer, letting Newell see them. It wasn't like the guy's name wasn't on the letterhead.

Taking the papers, Newell started reading. Joe leaned back in his chair, knowing that he was going to be here for a while.

* * *

“You are sure you're okay to go back in there?”

Frank grimaced. He wasn't, but then he also didn't know that he was ever going to meet the definition of okay again. That was something Zollner had taken from him, and he was not likely to get it back. He glanced back toward the office before meeting Nancy's eyes.

“I don't know,” he admitted. “I think that I'd like to just turn and run from all this, to go back to burying my head in the sand—or my bedroom, as the case may be—and staying there, but I don't know that I can. I have to do something about all of this. I... I was almost back on track. I still had doubts about what was real and what wasn't, but I was out of my room, again. I had finally convinced Joe to leave me alone for a day. This... was progress. And then that woman shows up at my door, and I lost it. All of it.”

Nancy bit her lip. She held out a hand to him. “You haven't lost everything. Your family—minus Gertrude, I admit—is still here for you. And you still have friends. Your support network is not gone, and one thing Zollner never managed to take from you was that. He tried to, making you doubt everyone, but you still have all of us.”

He forced a smile for her. She was trying to help, but she was right—the doubts made it hard to believe he had anyone. Plus, Zollner had used the people in his life, some of the people he was closest to—against him. Against the world, even.

“Let's go get Joe. I think he should have wrapped up the conversation by now, and even if he didn't, we're probably going to have to force him into a bed soon. We know your brother. He does not know when to quit.”

“That's true enough,” Frank agreed, and she gave his hand a squeeze before tugging him forward, back toward the office. They could collect his brother and go.

“Ah, Mr. Hardy,” Newell said as Nancy opened the door for them. “I've just been looking over the papers your brother gave me.”

Frank tensed. “And?”

“And I'm afraid I do recognize the documents in question. I remember fielding several questions about the complexity of the bequest,” the lawyer answered, making Frank feel sick. He grabbed the doorframe, trying to keep himself steady. Nancy gave him a look, not too different from the one Joe had. “All and all, it is some of Madeline's best work.”

Frank gagged. “Madeline wrote that will? That's not—you said she died two years ago. That cannot be the document she was working on before she died. No. Not possible.”

Newell shook his head. “I'm certain it is. I didn't see it in its entirety, but I recognize passages of it, and I know that it might not seem like it due to the legalese, but this has Madeline's voice all over it. This is her work.”

“It can't be,” Frank insisted. “You said she died two years ago—I didn't—the case that put me on Zollner's radar, the one on campus... That was only a little over a year ago. Maybe a year and a half, all told, even with the recovery and... No. Something is wrong here.”

“Are you sure you're not wrong about the dates? You did lose a lot of time when you were kidnapped and—”

“I know what day it was when I started looking into the thefts,” Frank insisted. “It hasn't been two years. That will has to be fake. It has to be.”

“Frank—”

“Zollner didn't even know me two years ago.”


	10. Some Wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe gets some medical attention from Laura, but everything at this point is a bandaid fix.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how anything managed to get done, but I'm just going to be glad there was more and it's done and... yeah. It's more and it's updated, and that's where it is.

* * *

“Joseph Hardy, if you do not sit yourself down in that chair and stay there, I swear I will tan your hide,” Laura said as they entered the house. “You are exhausted, and I am this close to dragging you right back to the hospital. Just give me a reason.”

“Mom, I'm fine. I'm a little tired, but we did do a lot of running around today trying to track down the notary and the lawyers and the truth about this will,” Joe said, grumbling as he took up a seat on the couch. He leaned his head back against the cushion and sighed. “The whole thing is a mess. Something's wrong, but I can't figure out where.”

“What's wrong is that the whole thing is a lie,” Frank said, taking the other chair. “The woman who came to the door yesterday has been dead for two years. The will was made two years ago. And while according to the lawyers and the notary, it's all legal, Zollner didn't even know who I was two years ago. I hadn't gotten the case at my school. It was before those thefts started.”

Nancy sat down next to Joe. “You know, I know none of us really wants to think it, but it _is_ possible that Zollner started more than—”

“No, it isn't,” Frank insisted. “He didn't know who I was. He couldn't.”

Laura snorted, and they all looked at her. She grimaced. “I'm sorry, but you're wrong. Your father has spent years developing a reputation as a detective, and as soon as you two started solving cases, you were building your own. It's something of a legend by now, at least locally. So when you say he couldn't know you... that's not true. Many people you've never met have heard of you. You're modest enough that you don't think of it like that, but it's true. You are known for what you do. Both of you—excuse me, Nancy—all three of you are.”

Nancy smiled back at her, though it was a sad one. “Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. In fact, I'd take it a bit further—if Zollner planned to start stealing from the schools, he might have looked into their personnel and enrollment records for potential threats. That case, Frank... It could have been a test all along. He might have wanted you to notice them and find the pattern and trace it back to him, thus proving your worth as his heir.”

Frank put a hand to his head. He got to his feet and started toward the stairs. “That's it. I'm done. I'm just... done.”

Joe started to rise. “Frank—” 

Nancy pulled him back down. “Let him have a few minutes. And don't think that no one noticed just how bad you've been today. Your mom is right. You need rest. I was thinking about it—you may have torn your stitches trying to get into Frank's room last night. You could have developed an infection.”

“Then you are coming with me,” Laura told him. “We're going to get a good look at that wound, clean it out, and see if you have a fever. You might be headed right back to the hospital.”

“Mom, I'm fine. None of this is necessary.”

“It is completely necessary,” Laura insisted, taking hold of his arm and pulling him toward the bathroom.

Nancy found herself alone in the room. She bit her lip, trying to decide if she thought Frank should be alone for longer or if she should hurry after him. On the one hand, he needed to be able to breathe and think. On the other, he was in a dangerous place with the world crumbling around him, and he could get hurt—even hurt himself—if he was left alone for too long.

She sighed, rising. She didn't know that she was making the right decision, but she'd rather be a little too pushy than hold back and risk losing him. That was not an acceptable option. She'd failed Ned, but she couldn't do that again. Maybe Ned wouldn't let her help him, but Frank was, or at least he had been, and she owed it to him to keep trying.

She went up the stairs, careful to take them lightly so he didn't hear a herd stampeding toward him. A quiet approach would be better. She could reach him, she hoped, and he wouldn't turn her away.  
She stopped at the door, knocking gently. “Frank?”

He didn't answer. She tried again, but when she still got no response, she decided there was only one thing to do. She pushed the door open and went inside.

* * *

“Mom, this isn't necessary,” Joe repeated, grimacing as she continued to push him into the bathroom. He was just a little tired, and that was not that out of line. He didn't need to be examined. He didn't need the hospital or a doctor. Just a bit of a rest and to make sure that Frank wasn't doing anything stupid while he was upstairs. It wasn't like Joe wanted to believe that Frank had been targeted long before they knew he was, but both Nancy and his mom had a point—Zollner could have known about Frank before the case.

It was, Joe thought, a little bruising to _his_ ego that he hadn't been the one chosen, but seeing what that had done to Frank, he wasn't really that jealous. No one would want that. Zollner's obsession was sick, and Frank was still paying for it.

“I'll decide what's necessary,” Laura said. She yanked up his shirt and went for the bandage on his side. He flinched as she pulled it off.

“See? You're overreacting.”

Laura gave him a dirty look before turning back to the cabinet. She took out a small mirror and came back to him, holding it next to his side. “Does that look like nothing to you?”

He winced when he got a better look at the wound. He'd only seen a little bit of redness when she moved his shirt, but the whole thing was inflamed, puffy and swollen to where the stitches were ready to burst. “Um...”

“Exactly, Joe. This is not good.” She shook her head. “I'm going to clean it out and use a disinfectant on it, as well as some antibiotic cream, but if I don't see any improvement, I will take you back to the doctor.”

“Mom—”

“I don't want to hear it. You were stabbed, in a car accident, and then shot not that long ago. Now you've been stabbed again. I am not taking any chances with you. We almost lost you. We almost lost Frank. I am not going to take any chances with this.”

Joe sighed, but there wasn't any good way to stop her without hurting her. Fighting would just make things worse, and he didn't want to be in that position again. He'd had to do that with Gertrude, had to disarm her, hurt her. His own aunt.

Laura stayed quiet as she worked, and that was how Joe knew she was really mad. If she was just a little upset, she'd be clucking at him, fussing and lecturing as she took care of him. Hers was a lot easier to take than Gertrude's would have been, but she wasn't giving it.

“Mom, are you—”

“Just let me work.”

“It can't be that bad. I mean, like you said, I got stabbed before. Got shot... Car accident. All of that. So this is tame, really.”

Laura glared at him. “Tame?”

“Compared to Frank's scars? Yes. You've seen them, haven't you? They're ten times worse than this. He was tortured. This is nothing. A scratch.”

“No, it is not, and don't try and deflect by using your brother's wounds as a way of saying yours are nothing. Both of you—all three of you—like to pretend that these aren't anything to worry about, but they are. Yours and your brother's.”

Joe rolled his eyes. He jerked when his mother touched his side. “Ouch! A little warning, maybe? That hurt.”

“Big surprise,” Laura muttered, and he winced. He didn't want him mom pissed off at him, and he knew he had to stop it, but she wasn't going to calm down until she was done treating him. Or until she was distracted enough.

“You and Dad have Frank's complete medical file, right?”

“Yes. We're still listed as next of kin and have power of attorney for medical decisions. Frank opted against picking you for that since the two of you end up sharing rooms too often. Why are you asking about that?”

“I was just curious.”

“I know that tone. What is it you really want to know?”

* * *

“Frank?”

He had known that someone would be coming, though he had hoped that it would take longer than this. He needed to be able to think, and he couldn't. He could barely breathe with all of this weighing down on him. Zollner.

That man's hold on him was insane. It shouldn't have that kind of reach. It shouldn't be possible.

Frank didn't want to believe it. It was one thing to come to the man's notice because of a case he'd found and solved when no one else did. That Frank had come to accept. He could live with it, that his choices had led him to Zollner and everything that came out of that.

To have been _picked,_ selected and tested without even knowing it...

It made him sick.

Worse, it made Zollner's words true.

_“You are mine, Franklin. You've always been mine.”_

How far back could that truly go? Did that mean that Zollner had found him back in his childhood? Had one of those simple, stupid cases that they'd solved when they were young and proving themselves been enough to fixate that psychotic bastard on him?

And if it went to his childhood—Frank ran to the nearest trashcan, throwing up everything in his stomach. He couldn't help it. The idea of that man watching him since he was a boy was horrifying. The worst sort of things came to his mind, and he couldn't stand it.

He heard his door open, and he looked over to see Nancy there. She gave him a small smile.

“Sorry. I was concerned, and I... I didn't want to make the same mistake twice,” she said, going over to his side. “I know, I shouldn't even say that, but I... Even if you don't want me here, and I don't actually know what I can do to help, I couldn't leave you alone.”

Frank shook his head. “I... There isn't anything anyone can do. That's the true, horrible genius of what Zollner has done. Everything is open to doubt, and so we question it, but we can't prove or disprove any of it and all it does is fester more doubt. Anything is possible with him, even the things we really don't want to _be_ possible.”

“Yeah.”

“Nancy, if it goes back further than two years, if he was after me when Joe and I were still kids...” Frank lowered his head, and she wrapped her arms around him, holding on as he tried not to breakdown completely. He didn't know how to fight this. He couldn't be sure that Zollner hadn't done that, and there was so much in place already—maybe this was Zollner's plan all along, but at the same time, why would it be? And why was there so much that didn't make sense? Was it all just because Zollner's mind games would keep them guessing, breaking them without any outside help?

“I don't know what to do,” Frank whispered. “I can't—Zollner is in my head. I can't get him out. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't—every little thing is one of his tricks, and I'm so messed up over them and what he did before—I can't think. I can't function. Joe is hurt, and my aunt is brainwashed, and all I can think about is Zollner. I can't stop it. I don't know what to do. I can't...”

“I wish I had some kind of easy solution for you, but I don't. I don't have the answers. I want to give them to you so badly, but I can't,” Nancy told him, running her fingers through his hair to soothe him. “I can't fix this. This isn't like one of our cases where we find a clue and suddenly everything falls into place. Zollner made sure we didn't have the pieces. You're right. It's part of his game, leaving us wondering and worrying and making things worse in our own minds.”

Frank sighed. “There has to be something. I have to find it, whatever it is, and then... Then maybe this can finally end.”

“And if there's nothing for you to find? What then?”

“I don't know. Damn it, I just... don't know.”


End file.
